


Cold Case

by crazywisdom (orphan_account)



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: A splash of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, F/F, i know i used the surname Woods i couldnt think of any!!!!!!!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-08
Updated: 2017-06-14
Packaged: 2018-10-29 05:56:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 38,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10847832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/crazywisdom
Summary: Undercover cop AU: Once Wells Jaha is ratted out by a mole within the police force, DCI Anya decides it's time to send two out in the field -- Detectives Clarke Griffin and newcomer Detective Lexa Woods -- to end this RED, Cage Wallace and Dr. Tsing business once and for all. Their covers? A loved-up lesbian couple.





	1. Reboot

Wells' funeral was about as impersonal as it could get. Clarke watched with clenched fists as his father, Theolonious Jaha, the Mayor of Arkadia, stepped up to the podium. Tears fell freely from her eyes as she took all of this in. Wells would've hated this. He hadn't spoken to his father in years, ever since taking on a job as Detective—he would've thought Jaha would've been _pleased_. But as ever, Jaha kept to himself, and all Wells wanted was some outside reciprocation.

He got none of that from Jaha.

"I think everyone who has worked with Detective Jaha will agree with me that he was a brave, generous, self-sacrificial, intelligent soul. He was gentle. He was kind." Jaha took a pause from his eulogy to look around at all the young Detectives sat before him today, his eyes briefly fixing on Clarke, who'd bowed her head down, clasping her hands together, crying. "He will be missed. He is irreplaceable, and it is only of my greatest regret that he has to go this way. This is an unfair end to a fantastic and promising life. Godspeed, my dear son."

The service was far too long, and far too impersonal. Clarke decided to take solace from the open buffet, and as she reached for the samosas, she nearly bumped into someone.

"Sorry for your loss." It came out automatically, as if the lady had been trained to do it. Clarke stared at her. Green eyes she weren't familiar with, yet uniform that indicated they were within the same precinct. "I'm sure he was an excellent Detective."

"Who're you?" Clarke said it a little more snappishly than she'd intended. The woman was slimmer and taller than her, her brown hair tied up for the service. Her eyes softened as she saw Clarke's angry eyes, and patted her awkwardly on the shoulder.

"You'll see," said the green-eyed woman. "Again: I'm truly sorry for your loss."

 _Bullshit. Everyone's sorry for my fucking loss_.

She swept away, leaving Clarke frozen by the samosas. She tried not to think of how inappropriately attractive she was—that was the _last_ thing she should've been thinking of at Wells' funeral. There was a violent clap on her right shoulder and as Clarke jumped, she cricked her head left to find Raven Reyes' goofy face about five centimetres away from her.

"Bullshit," was all she said, loading her plate up with anything and everything. "Mayor Jaha's been nothing but a prick. You ever see him contact Wells? _Never_. You can kiss my sorry ass he's devastated or whatever the fuck he said."

"Do you mind?" Clarke hissed. "It's Wells' funeral we're at."

"Didn't stop you from ogling the hot girl in uniform over there." Raven stuffed a cocktail sausage in her mouth, grinning through it. Clarke made a face; she could be disgusting at the best of times.

"How's your leg?" Clarke tried to make conversation, like it was normal. "Any better?"

"Still no amputation." Raven rubbed it subconsciously. "Your mother keeps pestering me for it but I'd rather suffer through the pain and the creams than get it chopped off. This leg's a part of me. I don't think your mother understands that."

"Do you want me to tell her, our qualified medic, that?"

"No." Raven popped another cocktail sausage in her mouth and walked away idly. "I'll tell her myself."

Soon, everyone filtered out—and Clarke noted with distaste that Mayor Jaha was one of the first to be ushered away. Clarke waited in the soft rain until she was alone, and placed a bouquet of flowers on his grave. Kneeling down, she closed her eyes and remembered his bright smile, his optimistic outlook on life, and most of all, his bravery. He'd been solely undercover, with Clarke as his back-up in his ear. She'd only heard him be killed. But as she thought of everything he'd gone undercover for, everything he'd done to try and crack this corrupt drug distribution system, she knew his fight was not over.

She was going to do something about it, and Wells would finally rest knowing justice had been served.

 

* * *

 

Clarke blistered into the meeting room of the precinct, her hair tousled, bags under her eyes. She fumbled around with the folders in her arms and ignored Raven's wolf-whistles and Bellamy's insistent asks of if she was okay or not. Ever since Wells' funeral she hadn't been sleeping well at all, and she'd confided into DCI Anya that it had affected her personally. Anya had offered her a few days off, but Clarke had firmly told her that coming back to work might've been the best solution.

To the right of Anya stood a tall woman—the same green-eyed woman she'd bumped into at Wells' funeral. She looked _good_ in that uniform. She wasn't just slim; Clarke could tell she was lean and muscular underneath, her jaw jutted out proudly as Anya introduced her as DI Lexa Woods. Raven hooted as she usually did for _any_ newcomer, but holy _shit_...

"I trust you'll all make Detective Woods as comfortable as possible," Anya said firmly, directing her gaze straight at Raven. Raven, rocking back in her chair, raised her hands up in innocence. "I don't want any tales of harassment. Or sexual harassment," she added, a little pink in the face. So Anya wasn't immune to Lexa's ridiculous good looks, either.

Clarke snorted as everyone gathered their belongings, ready for the day's work. "Not you, Griffin," Anya said curtly, and Clarke slowly lowered her things. She beckoned for Raven and Bellamy and Octavia to just _go_ —whatever this was, it was none of their business. DS Indra remained, and shut the blinds.

"Griffin," Anya said softly, not bothering to reach out to her. She perched on the end of a desk, and Indra remained a loyal guard by the door in case anyone burst through. Clarke didn't dare look at Woods. "I know you were Wells' co-partner on the RED case."

"That... _bastard_ shot him," Clarke said shakily, feeling her eyes burn at the memory. She could hear Wells on the comms, pleading for her not to feel guilty. Pleading for her to remain on the right side of justice. He'd told her he loved her. He'd told her she couldn't let this eat her up. And then, mercilessly, just like that— _BAM_.

"My offer still stands," Anya said, "if you need _any_ time out, you come to me, okay?"

"Okay."

"I know the wound is sore, and such is police work." Anya took a deep breath, knowing Clarke wouldn't like what she'd have to say next. _The wound is still sore_. "The RED case is still open for grabs, and I don't want anybody else to take it in case you see it as a slight to yourself."

"I'll take it," Clarke said hastily. "I—I don't trust anyone else with it."

"Then you'll know that if you're alone in the field, you have no back-up," Anya warned her. "You heard Wells' fate. You are one of our best Detectives, Griffin. I won't let you go into this alone."

"Then what do you expect me do?" Clarke yelled, snatching the case files from Anya's hand. She didn't bother flicking through it and slammed it on the desk instead. "Someone has to go in the field for it! Someone has to be on the other end as back-up. That's how it has _always_ worked!"

"And this time it got Wells Jaha killed," Anya said quietly, snatching the case file back. Clarke gritted her teeth, waiting for Anya to pull rank. This wasn't fair. If Anya was to allow Clarke take the case, then what was she doing here, stalling? She could easily put Octavia or Raven on back-up comms and go into the field and kill Cage Wallace for all the shit-for-brains was worth. Clarke took a deep breath, remembering that the new Detective Lexa Woods was still in the room, and so was Detective Sergeant Indra. She could easily embarrass herself now. "What's your suggestion?"

"We stick two of you in the field," Anya said. "We create impressive covers for two people to go. That way, in the field, you'll have each other's backs. We will still have back-up comms and back up officers."

"And who exactly am I supposed to go with?"

Clarke rifled through the Detectives she had. Raven would likely be on the comms, and Octavia was the most likely to fulfil that position. Bellamy was still an officer, but he was strong and overpowering. Whatever cover they made, she was sure she could pretend to be Bellamy's girlfriend for a few months. Silence shrouded them until Clarke realised the only reason Detective Woods was staying in the room was because—

"Fucking hell," Clarke said, in genuine surprise. "Really?"

"Yes, really. The two of you draw less suspicion. It's not often a man and a woman would relocate to a place like Cage and Dr. Tsing's, but if it were two _women_..." Anya wringed her hands together, eyes flicking from Woods to Clarke. "RED is still in full distribution through Washington DC. I don't know how they are evading routes we've been tipped-off; it's like they know we've been tipped-off. So word of this operation does not go beyond Indra, Woods, yourself, me—and I suppose both Blakes and Raven, for assistance. That way, if the information _does_ leak, we will narrow down our target."

"Anya..."

"We _will_ find justice for Wells Jaha," Anya vowed to her, handing her the case files. Her eyes flickered over to Detective Woods, who had been silent through the entire exchange. "I think it's time for you two to get to both know each other, hmm?"

"Detective."

 

-

 

They stayed up all night at Clarke's, with a six-pack of beer and a huge order of pizza and chicken wings. They never delved into it—apart from the beer. Lexa peered at her case files, nose scrunching at the bits she disapproved of, whilst Clarke seemed to relish her role. Lexa didn't bother asking what it was she'd received.

"I seem to be some kind of rich brat," Lexa said flatly, taking a very, _very_ long gulp of her Budweiser. Clarke snorted as Lexa decided to read the rest of her pompous file in some rich to-do voice. "I graduated from Yale, top of the class, in _English Literature_. I swear, if this means I have to know the ins and outs of _Jane Eyre,_ I'm out."

"I don't think Wallace will be that interested in _Jane Eyre_ ," Clarke reassured her, snickering. It was odd: when she'd bumped into Lexa at the funeral, she'd seemed almost...cold. Not unfriendly. But she didn't seem like the kind of person to make acquaintances until she really had to—and Clarke supposed now was one of those times. "I've got it in for _me_. I'm a medical student in Columbia in my final year."

"That connects you," Lexa said suddenly, "To Cage's production of RED. Anya will have you in the belly of the beast."

 _And that's when it all goes wrong_. Clarke nodded silently, memorising her new identity. Lexa would be Elizabeth Beaumont, and Clarke would be Jackson Smith, because Anya had wanted an ' _edgy_ ' name for her. That had gone horribly wrong, first of all. The fact that she could not imagine promising medic Jackson going on a date with stuffy-nosed Elizabeth was at the forefront of her worries. The only thing Lexa's cover had going for her was that she was drop-dead gorgeous _and_ had a rich father. But if Jackson was supposed to be a doctor and kind and all that—would she go out with someone for money?

Well, yes.

Clarke slapped herself internally, chuckling. She thought of Wells, whose picture she kept in her wallet and she placed it on her desk. She didn't want everything going topsy-turvy only for Cage to find a picture of a police mole in her wallet. She kissed his picture.

"Did you love him?" Lexa asked tentatively, opening her second bottle of beer.

Clarke shook her head. "No. He was my best friend. But..."

"But?"

"I think he loved me," she confessed quietly, remembering the ways he would look at her, and the double choc-mocha he'd always get her first thing in the morning. She remembered the way he would do _anything_ for her, the drunken moment by the bar he'd dribbled into her shoulder and muttered of love, the time he'd tried to kiss her—yes, Wells loved her. But she could never, _ever_ love him back like that. Not even in death.

"Let's try this again," Clarke suggested, setting the case files aside. Lexa did the same, taking a sip from her beer as she pushed the file shut. "Okay. My name is Jackson Smith. I'm a final year medical student at Columbia, and I'm looking for employment."

"My name is Elizabeth Beaumont. I come from a line of successful businessmen, and I have been born into riches. My only wish is to expand my late father's empire." Lexa hadn't quite finished yet as she clutched her chest. "It still feels like he's with me."

"What was his name?" Clarke asked.

"Geoffrey. He was a big man, and he loved me with all his heart."

"So he left you this inheritance? Why have you not put some away for investment? Hired some advisers for buying stock?"

"I just can't bear to see his money go to waste. My father worked hard for his money. I know nothing of it. I only know that I will invest in what seems promising; what is guaranteed to succeed." She paused, frowning deeply. "If you're digging into Cage Wallace's medical formula for RED, then can I dig deeper into the investment side of things?"

"What d'you mean?"

"Read the case closely." Both women shot off their seats to their case files, ruffling through the pages. "There," Lexa said, finger jammed on page seventeen. Clarke flicked to the same page. "We know there's a ridiculous amount of money being transferred anonymously into Cage's account. It's untraceable, but if you can't get to the formula, then I can get to it via my 'money'."

"I can't put you at risk too," Clarke told her earnestly. "You are supposed to be a distraction for Tsing. You're not an investor in her husband's business."

"Yeah, and you notice how her prefix is Doctor?" Lexa asked quickly, still fixated on page seventeen. "She's in this with Cage! She provides the formula, mixes it, and Cage provides the manpower for production and distribution. I can get to her if I pretend I'm some dumb English major but if I am a _rich_ English major, and I let this slip to Tsing, then she'll tell her husband."

"You want to become an investor in RED?"

"It's one way in. You have the other: you're the medical student with knowledge and interest about Dante's everyday...whatever the fuck he does. His shrewd father's out of the way. Let me take care of Tsing, and we will have two ways in. Wouldn't you say that doubles our chances?"

Clarke stared at her, bamboozled and impressed. It should have been glaringly obvious, but what she didn't understand was why Lexa was so eager to risk her life as Wells had done. She could've easily stayed out of this as the clueless, rich girlfriend to a nosy medical student—who, incidentally, was also a police mole—but Lexa had thrown herself into it. She cracked open a beer for herself and stared forlornly at the pizza, her appetite well and truly gone.

"Why?" She hated the way her voice cracked. "I don't want you to end up like Wells."

"This is my job," Lexa told her straightforwardly. "I don't have anyone to lose. And if I have to give my life to justice, then that's the way life is."

Clarke nodded, allowing a comfortable silence to settle over them. Clarke's cover suited her perfectly; she was well-accustomed to the ins and outs of medicine but she was worried about Lexa. If she was going to delve deeper into the case, she couldn't just be some idiotic English major. Of both of them, it was Lexa that needed testing.

"Elizabeth," she said loudly, causing Lexa to drop the slice of pizza she was about to wolf down. "What's your favourite book?"

" _Lord of the Flies_ ," Elizabeth—Lexa—answered promptly, chewing slowly. "I find it hugely underrated, but its message is so grown-up, despite its story depicted by children. It is about the ugliness of human nature—and what are we, if not ugly?"

"Who was that by, again?" Clarke clicked her fingers in the air, eyes scrunched up.

"William..." Lexa took a bite. "Steinbeck?"

"Euh-uhhhh."

"Golding?"

"Bingo. Revise that one."

"What did Steinbeck write? Was it the one with George and Larry?"

"Revise."

 

* * *

 

"Rumour has it you have a new case," Mayor Jaha slouched in his chair, crossing his legs. DCI Anya was on the other side of the desk, utterly unfazed. "Is there something I need to know?"

"Nothing," Anya said sweetly. "It's internal."

"Oh? An internal investigation?"

"Something like that." Anya studied him. She'd never liked Theolonious Jaha; he was too cold and too calculating. He was a coward. He'd bend to anyone's will—and that's why she never liked him. "How are you, Mayor? I understand Detective Jaha's death must have affected you terribly. It has come as a great shock to the team."

 "I'm...coping." Everything about him screamed " _lie_ ". It had been animosity bubbling between them for _years_ now—and Anya didn't know why. Jaha didn't like her in this position but he didn't like anybody else in this position, either. Still, Jaha had thrown himself back in work, doing whatever his Mayor duties asked of him—but Anya would be damned if she saw a speckle of grief in his eyes for his murdered son.

Wells' death had come to a shock more to the precinct than it had Jaha. That much she could confirm.

"There's still trouble on the streets," The Mayor carried on slowly, fidgeting with the pen on Anya's ask. "Crime rates are controlled. Drug use has, excuse the pun, shot up. Do you have a contingency plan for that?"

"That'll come in the future," Anya told him darkly, careful not to reveal any of Lexa and Clarke's work to him. She knew she could trust the Mayor with anything, but something just said " _no_ " when it came to telling Theolonious. No, she didn't trust him. But with the wellbeing of the city? Yes—of course she did.

But this was a project with a few select people in the know. Anya would keep it that way.

"You'd do well not to keep anything from me, Chief," Jaha warned her, placing the pen back where it belonged. Anya remained unmoving. "I don't want to remove you from this position."

"I won't be the one removed," Anya said through gritted teeth and stood up, her arm gesturing towards the door. Without another word, Jaha left, with no goodbyes shared.

 

* * *

 

Clarke let out a low whistle.

Manor Gardens had been everything she'd dreamed of and more. Fancy, big apartments with balconies—for the sunny days—and she could imagine herself sharing a glass of white wine with—with _someone_. The rent, she'd Googled, was through the roof. That was where Lexa's—or Elizabeth's—money came in handy. The loved-up duo was to move into the apartment directly opposite Cage and Dr. Tsing's. In doing so, they had a ridge under which they could duck under if they came under fire from the malicious duo—but otherwise, they were armed with binoculars to essentially spy on them.

It was creepy, and she'd voiced this concern to Anya already, only to be scoffed at and brushed off. What else was espionage supposed to contain? Lexa assured her that if James Bond never felt guilty about his exploits, then Clarke shouldn't, either.

She laughed, a little too loudly, at that. 

It was the eyes.

Unloading their equipment from an unmarked truck, Clarke let Lexa offer to be the gentlewoman and unload most of the boxes up the staircase to their new flat. It would be their living quarters for goodness' knows how long, and Bellamy made sure to evade all cameras as he helped Lexa as well. Meanwhile, Octavia and Raven rested against the side of the white van, folded arms and all.

"She's hot," Raven decided to point out the obvious. "You know you're a couple—do you think you're gonna fuck?"

"Jesus," Clarke exhaled, smacking Raven on the elbow. Raven snorted. "No. She's completely professional. We are not going to—sleep together."

"What about you? Are _you_ a complete professional?"

" _Yes_!"

"I give it two weeks," Raven said shamelessly. Octavia raised her eyebrows at her. "Three?"

"I think they're both doing their jobs impeccably," Octavia argued for Clarke, ignoring Raven's bored eye-rolls. Clarke smiled thinly in appreciation. It wasn't a funny situation to be honest. They were only in this position because of Wells' death, and Clarke would never forget that. She would never forget his final words to her on the intercom, just before some jerk placed two bullets into him. Octavia slipped her arm around Clarke's shoulder for support. "I'm gonna say two."

"Octavia!"

"I'm sorry! She _is_ hot!" The trio watched in thirsty silence as Lexa, dressed only in a tank-top and slim-fit jeans, hoisted yet another box up. Her lean muscles were glistening in the sunlight, a mixture of effort and sweat, and it was unbearable. Clarke tore her eyes away first, knowing she would have to maintain a professional, working relationship with this woman for the next couple of weeks at least. Both women caught the way Clarke's cheeks reddened, and patted her on the shoulder.

"If it helps, she doesn't _seem_ like the likeable kind," Raven said. "I dunno. I tried to make conversation with her in the cafe and she gives answers like 'yes' or no'."

"So...she answered it?"

"Yeah, but you know when it's the type of question where you expect some sort of lead-up? Like, you know, onto another conversation? None of that. Absolutely none."

"If you were on a coffee-run," Octavia interjected thoughtfully, "maybe she just was half-asleep."

"Nah, nah. She was alert. I could tell that much. Then she just started being short with me."

"Don't be stupid," Clarke said. "She was fine with me when we were rehearsing our roles and stuff for the undercover business. She seemed fine to me."

Raven raised her eyebrows, and Octavia coughed as she clambered back into the van, muttering something about leaving a piece of equipment behind. Clarke folded her arms, having to deal with Raven's judgemental look as Bellamy and Lexa finished moving into their new flat. The luxury of Manor Gardens was so not worth this.

 

* * *

 

When Bellamy and Lexa finished unloading their cargo, sweat dripping everywhere, chatting good-naturedly about where the best burger joint in town was, Clarke could barely believe her eyes. Not twenty-four hours ago had Bellamy been chatting shit about how snooty Lexa had been, and how she'd taken the last of the mocha in the coffee machine before it broke. It had been a grudge since then, but now, apparently after bonding over lifting heavy boxes, Bellamy had changed his mind.

"Not bad, though, Woods," Bellamy said with one of his trademark grins, and Clarke mimed vomit behind Lexa's back. Bellamy scrunched his eyes up at her. "Hey, you work out?"

"There's a twenty-four hour gym a couple of blocks from where I live," Lexa said. "I don't do much. Just weights and that."

"You know, I go with my pal Lincoln," Bellamy said. "He mainly pushes me with boxing and stuff. Jabs and evading them. You should come along."

"I don't think I'd be able to keep up with you," Lexa laughed, sizing Bellamy up.

Bellamy crossed his arms, knowing his flexed his impressive muscles. "Come on. I promise, I won't make you do anything out of your comfort zone. It's just two work-mates going to the gym."

"And _you_ forget," Clarke barged in, ignoring Bellamy's eyeroll. Bellamy threw his hands up in the air, muttering, " _when can I ever?_ " as Clarke wedged in-between them. "I'm supposed to be going over our _serious shit_ here, that _serious shit_ being _undercover shit_ and I am not going to compromise my partner on this case on some stupid gym slash threesome when we should be working on our identities!"

Bellamy spluttered, clearly offended. He made sure to stay behind the van and out of sight of the cameras. "Threesome?"

"Oh, shut up. You'd have any piece of vagina so long as it lives and breathes." Clarke shoved him. "Sometimes not."

" _Clarke_!"

"Ignore him," Clarke told Lexa, shaking her head. "He's like that with everyone."

"If it helps, I'm not..." Lexa rubbed the back of her neck. "I'm gay."

Clarke digested the information _far_ too slowly for a normal human being. Her eyes bulged like saucers and then she swallowed all-too-loudly, nodding frantically, like one of those pugs with the springs for the neck. Lexa waited for some kind of verbal response, but Clarke instead clapped her on the side of her upper arm, as if congratulatory, and then carried on nodding. She wasn't sure _why_ she was reacting like a lunatic, or why she was freaking Lexa out—

"Good on you," Clarke blabbed, hating herself. "It's really—great."

"Are you okay with that? I should've disclosed it with Anya. I know we're supposed to be—"

"It's really—well _done_ ," Clarke said, ignoring the utterly baffled look on Lexa's face. She fist-pumped the air as if to back up her happiness. "Congratulations... _congratulations_!"

Thank heavens, the rest of the gang saved her from an eternity of embarrassment. Raven was the first to arrive on-scene, noting the cherry colour on both Clarke and Lexa's cheeks and shooting them a rakish grin.

"Here's yours," Raven said, and it marvelled and both wound Clarke up that she did not dare say any of her 'pet names' for Lexa in front of her face. She supposed she was worried Lexa would deck her in the face. It was a small radio-piece. "You can slip it in your bra—which'll probably work if you have _huge tits_ and plenty of padding—" she shot Clarke a meaningful glance, who scowled back at her, "—but Lexa, this can go anywhere. It's a listening device. You can put it in your purse if you want. Or, heck, even in that massive hair of yours."

"Up the vagina?" Octavia provided.

"Potentially." Raven pondered on this. "I'd imagine it's quite...difficult..."

"Enough of that," Clarke snapped, cringing at the mental image. _Thanks, Octavia._ "Anything else?"

"They are recording devices too," Raven said. "Top of the range, as well. Say, Lexa, you stick that in your purse and you keep the purse right on your lap or something, it'll record everything over the table. I have these—" she held up some tiny SD memory cards, "—just in case you need them. They are still powered by good old fashioned tech. Once you transfer them to your laptop—new ones, I've got you—then you can get a good handful of these." Raven tossed a small duffel bag towards them—full of external hard-drives. "Transfer what you have on your computer here. We'll organise a drop-off with Anya at some point. We'll contact you. You're not alone. Make sure your computer's wiped as soon as the handover's done, and then the information will be safe with us."

"What will you do with it?" Lexa asked sharply. "Where will you store it?"

"Girl after my own heart," Raven said dreamily, ignoring Lexa's glare that wouldn't go away. "We're building a case against Cage Wallace and Dr. Tsing. This will provide evidence that the court cannot reject. No matter the money Cage has or whoever's supplying him with it, he won't be able to walk free with this kind of evidence. And that evidence has to be retrieved by _you_."

Lexa played around with the radio-device and exchanged a wary look with Clarke. "Anything else?"

"Anything you need is in the second duffel bag," Raven said. "All sorts of spyware, phone-cloning devices, burner phones, binoculars, recording bugs...everything and the moon is in there. If you need something you call us on the secure SAT phone and you tell us. We'll get it out to you as an Amazon delivery."

"Right."

"And you need to be armed," Raven added, as if this was obvious. She smiled, and handed Clarke and Lexa their own guns. "Use with caution."

"I'll be sure to," Lexa said drolly.

"The rest of it is up to you," Octavia told them, with her brother Bellamy nodding in agreement behind them. "You get in there. Snake in there if you have to. You make sure Cage and Tsing are indispensable to you. You get them drunk on whatever's their poison. You make them tell you things they wouldn't usually tell someone. And you get that evidence."

Clarke nodded at her and then to Lexa. Gone was the identity of Detective Clarke Griffin, and in its place stood a promising medical student Jackson Smith. She was head over heels for rich and bookish Elizabeth Beaumont. She mourned her real life for a moment before she wondered: what really did she have going for her?

Time to avenge Wells—and time to fall in love with Elizabeth Beaumont.


	2. 27 Dresses

Their apartment was directly opposite Dr. Tsing and Cage Wallace's, and it was difficult because they had to keep their blinds shut at all times in case either Tsing or Cage were by the window. Lexa insisted that it was a stupid idea, because it made them look like hermits, but Clarke wasn't feeling too great about encountering the two causes of her best friend's death. Lexa was a detective, and a fine one at that, so she had no problem deciphering why Clarke, clearly the most outgoing of the lot, did not want to even look at Tsing and Wallace from across the balcony.

"You know," Lexa said, making breakfast. She had a killer recipe for blueberry pancakes, and within three days it had suddenly become Clarke's favourite breakfast. "At some point, you will have to open those blinds."

"I know." Clarke went over to the kitchen bench and poured them both a glass of orange juice. There were still boxes everywhere of Clarke's stuff, at which Lexa had marvelled at. Lexa was something of a minimalist. Even undercover, Clarke looked as if she'd dropped a bomb in the place. "Can that come _after_ you feed me your delicious pancakes, though?"

"What, fork by fork?" Lexa teased.

"Whatever works for you."

Lexa tossed a fork at her, ignoring Clarke's offended proclamation. It was stupendously easy and disconcertingly so, flirting with Lexa. Ever since Lexa's slightly dull admission that she was gay (Clarke wasn't sure what she had expected. Fireworks?) Clarke had practically been eating out of Lexa's very suggestive hand. And it wasn't _healthy_ , because Clarke knew she did not feel that way about women. Or most women, anyway. College phases did not count.

"Look, we're running on limited time," Lexa told her seriously over breakfast. "If you give me time to set up Raven's tech in here, as well as find out the best spots for watching them, _and_ do a background check on both Tsing and Wallace—you could maybe distract them by—well—doing—your...thing?"

"My thing?"

"Well." Lexa chewed deliberately slowly. "You're very personable. If you just go over with a bouquet of flowers and introduce yourself, I'm sure they will be charmed."

"You're not coming?"

"I've got all this to set up!"

"Okay, okay. So you need me to buy you time?"

"Yes. Yes, please."

"Okay. Then—then I'll say you're...reading," Clarke said lamely. "I'm just keen because Dante Wallace is a bit of a celebrity in my field, so his son's like Dante's Jesus, and I'll go over because Dr. Tsing is clearly into his work and so is his son—"

"Just go—" Lexa ushered her out of the door, shoving some money into her hand. "Don't forget to buy flowers!"

Clarke relented to this with an overly loud grumble as she clattered down the stairs, her hair still mussed with sleep. Lexa threw herself into work. It was all she could do when faced with situations like this. Undercover work was stressful enough. The last time she'd gotten caught in too deep with a gang, and she'd done horrible things—in the name of the law, apparently. She didn't want this to turn out the same way.

Still, Clarke seemed harmless, if a little too comely in her flirting. Lexa was used to women flirting with her as soon as they found out she was gay, but Clarke was something _else_. Every half-innuendo Lexa hadn't even intended to make was suddenly the gayest remark Lexa had ever made, and she wasn't even quite sure how that worked.

Sighing, she plugged in Raven's devices, one for her purse and the other for...wherever Clarke put it. That was the easy part. Next, following the hastily scribbled instructions, she opened the curtains and blinked as sunlight streamed through. A quick check confirmed her suspicions: Cage and Tsing weren't at the balcony. If Clarke was headed to the florist then back up, then she'd have to be quick. She bent down and crouched to try and find the best angle to snoop on the duo without getting spotted, and set up a preliminary camera by the sofa next to the window, just in case they had to hide behind a solid surface. Otherwise, the balcony was safe. There was a small oval table with two rickety chairs, and Lexa planted one listening device underneath the balcony itself, in case Cage and Tsing ever visited.

It was something she had to take into account. If the duo ever wanted to come over for dinner, she couldn't just have cameras everywhere. _I should've been a photography student_ , she lamented, before taking the camera off the sofa. Placing a bug underneath the balcony table was too risky as well, so she sprawled out onto the balcony, reaching to place a bug that would sit nicely, just underneath the table and the floorboards. Hopefully, Raven's technology would reach.

They needed cameras, though. They needed actual video proof beyond just hers and Clarke's spying with binoculars. Beyond temporary set-ups here, they wouldn't be able to install any permanent cameras without getting into Tsing and Wallace's apartment themselves, and that would either require a stealthy break-in or an invitation for dinner. Lexa cringed at the latter, but she made a note of it anyway.

She placed one bug underneath one of the loose tiles in the bathroom, just in case Cage might have excused himself to either the balcony or the bathroom for one of his phone calls. But other than that, they didn't have many options besides entering the lion's den itself.

Lexa yawned, realising that this operation wasn't putting her detective skills to work—rather, it was putting her people skills to work. Now _that_ she hadn't graduated from, and she couldn't really guarantee a 100% success rate, there, either. It wasn't that she couldn't blag her way through a snoozefest with oodles of nonsense spouted confidently enough that it sounded _real_ ; it was just that she didn't exactly _like_ people—especially when they sprouted in the form of a rich billionaire's bratty son and his glorified doctor-wife.

And then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Tsing and Wallace's balcony open. Before she ducked, her body decided to freeze into stunned position as she saw Clarke talking animatedly to the both of them. Tsing was carrying a vase of lilies to put outside.

"And I just saw them," Clarke's voice was booming with excitement, "And I just thought they'd look so _pretty_ on your balcony! I mean, I—I can't lie—I'm _such_ a huge fan of your work," she said to both Tsing and Wallace, who smiled gracefully at her. Lexa cringed at the pitch of her voice. _This_ was how her supposed girlfriend Jackson Smith was going to talk? All the time? "I know you probably get us geeks fangirling over the both of you _all the time_ —"

"If it helps," Cage said, "We actually don't."

"Ahh, then I'll be the first," Clarke squealed, so loudly that Lexa was sure it was so she could hear everything Clarke was saying. She'd only realised then she'd left the balcony doors open, and as she bounded across the room to shut them, Clarke jabbed a finger her way." _She_ ," she shouted, so both Cage and Tsing glanced her way, "Is my _beautiful_ girlfriend I've been talking about!"

"Hello!" Cage shouted across, waving.

"Er...hi!" Lexa shouted back awkwardly, cursing her choice of clothing. A NASA t-shirt and denim shorts? She supposed Elizabeth Beaumont, tootsy English Major should've worn something like _'down with misogyny_!'

"Isn't she _adorable_?" Clarke cooed loudly, and Lexa's cheeks reddened in embarrassment as Tsing and Wallace nodded in agreement, grinning over to her. "Honestly, I can't _wait_ to meet you guys properly. I could not _be_ any happier that you love in the same apartment block as us."

"It's rare to have a fan," Cage conceded finally, loudly enough for Lexa to hear. He supposed it would be shameful of him to exclude the girlfriend from the conversation—even if she was right across the compound. Lexa smiled goofily at him, unsure of what to say. Clarke was playing some sort of game, and she hadn't consulted Lexa in this; she was improvising, and Lexa had zero material prepared.

"I tell you what, Lorelei," Clarke said, because Tsing's name was now Lorelei, "Liz _loves_ literature too. She majored in it. I'm _sure_ you two will get on like a house on fire."

"Come to think of it," Tsing said, "It'll be nice to talk to someone who knows books, instead of him burying his head in the science ones all the time," she teased Cage, shoving the side of his head. Cage pretended it hurt him, and rolled his eyes.

"I'll talk to Jackson," Cage said, "And you and Liz over there can talk _Pride and Prejudice_."

"How about dinner?" Tsing shouted over, her smile warm. "I can make a mean chilli con carne, and it's _mean_." Cage growled for emphasis, and Clarke raised her eyebrows behind the both of them. Oh, holy _shit_. "We'll get to know each other over dinner. Properly. How's that?"

"Sounds great," Lexa yelled over before thinking, trying to get into character and failing miserably. "I'll—I'll bring some books! Maybe I can lend you some!"

"Maybe we can stop shouting for conversation!" Tsing yelled back, and Clarke laughed loudly—it was _so fake_ —between them. Eventually, the balcony doors shut and Lexa relaxed, shutting them too and sinking into the sofa. Time to crack open the beer and call it a day.

 

* * *

 

"I have to read this because...?"

"It's Dr. Tsing's favourite book," Clarke gabbled, running a hand through her hair. She paced up and down the room. She was stressed. "You need to memorise at _least_ the beginning quote. Apparently, that's world-famous. So just read, okay?"

"Why are you acting as if you've just had a line?"

" _Because_ I just waltzed into Cage Wallace and Lorelei Tsing's apartment like it was a breeze!" Clarke half-shouted, wary of the balcony window. Thankfully, Lexa had shut them. "I was talking rubbish about how I was interested in pharmaceuticals—"

"Isn't that how you're supposed to connect with Cage--?"

"And then all of a sudden Dr. Tsing is on about dresses and how we can pick between Pinot and Shiraz, because they really don't mind—"

"Oh, they don't mind so they give us _two choices_ to pick from?"

"And because they're cooking for us, and at some point during dinner we're going to have to plant bugs in their apartment in pre-decided places otherwise this is going to go all tits-up!"

Lexa allowed Clarke to finish her rant, holding her arms up. She wanted nothing to do with Clarke's breakdown and nor did she want to hear any more of what was Dr. Tsing's favourite fish (it was Talbot). She just wanted to sit down and actually _relax_ , but with Clarke so high-strung, it was impossible. Lexa was never one to tell anyone to calm down (so she refrained from doing so with Clarke) because Clarke had every right to be stressed about this—except they were such minor details it was almost laughable. Pinot? Shiraz? Who the fuck cared?

Clarke cared, and it was enough to make Lexa's reluctant heart care too.

"How about we get them a bottle of both?" Lexa said quietly. "I don't care for either. I'll get the Pinot and you get the Shiraz. We'll make up a story of how we quarrelled in the supermarket because we wanted the best for them, and Elizabeth and Jackson have very different ideas on what's best."

"...Yeah?"

"Yeah. Let's say you like Shiraz because it's what you always have at Thanksgiving. I'm more of a snob and I like Pinot because I read my first Bronte book with a glass of it."

Clarke snorted at the ludicrous story and buried her head in her hands. At least she'd made her smile. Of all the idiotic things Lexa could say, this was one of them—and she daresay it was worth it. Clarke had bothered far too much with the flowers (Lexa wondered how long she'd spent at the florist's) and she'd had to keep up a damn good act with Cage and Dr. Tsing opposite them. It was no wonder Clarke seemed tired of it all, but at least they were the guests. They didn't have to cook anything, the gods forbid—and so the only thing to plan was where to plant the bugs.

"Bathroom—two of them," Lexa said immediately. "One right at the end of the bath-tub, underneath it, and the other one...the other one can sit in a slip behind the sink."

"Bedroom?" Clarke suggested, though they both cringed at the sound of having to listen to Tsing and Cage fuck every night. "Under the mattress makes sense."

"What if they change mattress cover?" Lexa asked. "How about we try for under the bed? Right at the corner? Jam it in the bed-frame."

"Okay. Where else? At the make-up desk?"

"In one of the drawers," Lexa agreed, "And let's have another one for the depths of the wardrobe."

"Okay. So three in the bedroom and two in the bathroom. We still have the living space to cover, the balcony, and the kitchen."

Lexa mentally counted how many bugs Raven had supplied them with. They'd used five up already, with another seven remaining. She cringed. The living space would be hard to cover, but she supposed most intimate conversations happened in the bed and bathroom.

"One for the balcony, two for the kitchen, four for the living space," Lexa decided. "We'll stick one just in the corner of the balcony, at the bottom of the rails. In the kitchen I'll take one in the back of a cupboard and one in one of the cutlery drawers, right at the back. In the living space..." They had four spare, so Lexa graciously offered them to Clarke, who shrugged.

"One down the back of the sofa," Clarke said, "One in the television set-up. One in the entrance hallway—we'll take the drawers. The other—we'll slip in behind the curtains."

Lexa was jotting them all down as Clarke spoke and nodded in agreement as she went along. For some reason, it made Clarke's heart jump a little whenever Lexa seemed to approve of something she said. Lexa hadn't quite made it clear what precinct she'd transferred from, but it was clear she was highly respected by Anya and Indra—and new recruits were _never_ respected by them. Whatever it was, she had been the subject of the precinct gossip for about a week now, and the biggest bet was that Lexa had dirt on them. Looking at Anya and Indra, the pinnacle of the law, Clarke highly doubted that. But she supposed it wasn't too far of a stretch to assume that the trio had been entangled before, somehow.

"There _is_ a favour I have to ask of you," Clarke said offhandedly, in a way that didn't sound like she was asking at all. Lexa barely took her eyes from her laptop screen, resigned to the fact that she'd have to agree to something anyway. She frowned at the screen. The numbers just didn't make sense... "You're just gonna have to be a bit quiet. Like, meek. 'Cause I'm, like, the top."

That was enough for Lexa to tear her gaze away from the screen. Stunned to silence, she could only stare at Clarke in disbelief at the statement. It as if she'd just read straight from "how to lesbian for dummies" except she'd got it all wrong. Words could not quite express her horror, so Clarke took it as a yes and kissed her on the cheek in thanks, bounding into the kitchen to finish off this morning's cold pancakes. Lexa felt her stomach churn.

She was the bottom?

An English major _and_ a bottom?

With a heavy sigh, she wondered how on earth she'd gotten here; how she'd sunk so low. A little distraught, to turned her eyes to the numbers on her screen where she was monitoring the transactions in and out of Wallace & Son's company account. There had been a random drop-off of fifty thousand dollars only last month from an anonymous source. Or so she suspected. Lexa didn't expect 'Charletons Ltd' to amount to anything, and a quick Google search confirmed her suspicions. Whoever it was, they were tumbling the money and then depositing it anonymously into the Wallaces' account. Lexa briefly wondered if the elderly tycoon Dante had any idea at all, or if this was all Cage's work. She decided she didn't care—not even if the old bat turned out to be the nicest soul on earth, either.

"Look here," Lexa muttered, gesturing towards the screen. Clarke leant over the back of the sofa to stare at the laptop screen on the table, which Lexa tried not to find distracting. "See that massive deposit? But so long as I'm aware, the company doesn't have a major investor. They have some small backers, but nothing quite as substantial as this."

"Then why not deposit it in a more discrete manner?" Clarke asked. "Surely they'd know we'd pick up on this. It's either a trap or there's a new investor we need to investigate."

"I suppose it could be a number of things," Lexa said. She sighed, leaning against the back of the sofa, both hands placed on top of her head. It was difficult to turn away from the curve of her shoulders, the easiness in the way she moved. Clarke pulled herself together. This case would not succeed if they continued drooling over each other. "Maybe there's some kind of Deep Web movement wanting RED to succeed, and they've somehow..." The story got more unlikely as she said it, "Raised fifty million dollars."

"Where is it coming from, then?" Clarke plopped down next to Lexa, a bowl of pretzels magically appearing in her hand. Lexa didn't even bother asking. "And why is it so impossible to trace?"

"The money's been passed on, as a matter of speaking," Lexa explained, gesturing wildly to get her point across. "Think of it like a dollar bill, okay? You get that dollar bill and you pass it back to someone else who passes it to someone else who passes it to someone else—and it happens hundreds, thousands of times. Were you looking, at first, who held the dollar bill?"

Clarke chomped on a pretzel. "So it's essentially dirty money?"

"Not necessarily. It's just been very, very recycled, and very hard to trace. We could easily pinpoint the wrong person—they could be innocent to all of this, and totally unaware of what's happening. It just so happens that the currency ran through their relay."

"Are you talking—about actual money, or—"

"It's virtual, then it's actual," Lexa said unhelpfully. "Long story short: it's impossible."

"Look." Clarke set down her Pepsi can—when had she even gone to the fridge? Lexa marvelled at this—and then jumped over the back of the sofa, landing ungraciously next to Lexa. The laptop nearly fell on the floor, and Lexa laughed, slapping Clarke on the back of her head. "Just chill out okay? We've got plenty of time. We're gonna make friends with those two psychos over there, you're going to get a figure-hugging dress, I'm going to show my tits, basically, and we'll have a nice cooked dinner."

"You make it sound so easy."

"Yeah? I fucking _hate_ Talbot."

 

* * *

 

Dress-shopping was a lot easier when your partner was actually into it. Lexa plodded around the high street as if she'd rather be watching paint dry, and it look Clarke the physicality of dragging Lexa—who was stronger than she looked—into each shop. One dress didn't fit. One dress wasn't the right colour. One dress was far too short. One dress looked like a tart's. There was no shortage of complaints until they reached shop number six, and Lexa, her stony face—still stony—stepped out of the dressing room wearing a green dress. It was elegant, beautiful and it suited her slim figure perfectly.

"We're taking that," Clarke said immediately, as Lexa opened her mouth. "And the heels. And the clutch. That's a nice clutch! Yeah, yeah—this card here—just—it's Anya..."

Lexa ignored the rest of the conversation Clarke was having with the shop-owner, her eyes only catching the way Clarke leant forward to share an intimate joke, and the way her hands lingered on the shop-owner's elbow. _It's just you and your gay brain_. Self-consciously, she stared at her reflection. Clarke hadn't even given her the luxury of that.

The green was an excellent reflection of her eyes, and the material was comfortable to wear—just tight enough to be of slim-fit, but okay so that Lexa didn't appear to have a belly after dinner. She didn't want to hear the phone-call Anya would soon be giving Clarke about charging it under her name, but whatever.

Clarke's shopping was even _more_ difficult.

Lexa couldn't help it. Every single dress fitted like a charm, and there was _plenty_ of cleavage to go around. She could see Clarke with her make-up done and her hair slightly curly, down by one side of her neck. And then she could see a dress—she couldn't see _which_ dress yet—but any dress. Any dress seemed to suit her, which didn't suit _Clarke_.

"You can't just—be nice," Clarke snapped. "You're supposed to give some constructive criticism."

"I...think you look nice in all of them," Lexa said diplomatically, scratching her head. She couldn't even remember what the first one looked like. "Can't you just decide?"

It had taken them hours, but eventually, Lexa had audibly—and she would slap herself afterwards—gasped at one red dress with a revealing slit in the middle. It was _gorgeous_. It accentuated Clarke's alluring curves, and it teased just above knee length. The accessories only added to it, but Lexa could not stop staring at Clarke's dress, and—oh, _God_ , she could hear ' _Lady in Red_ ' playing in the background of her brain. She'd looked like a goddess. Lexa could see the shape of her ass, and the tightness around the chest area as well as the slit down the middle only impressed even more with her breasts, and...

"Helloooo?" Clarke cocked her head to one side. "You gonna sit in that armchair all day or are you gonna help me lug our shopping home, Wonderwoman?"

Lexa snapped out of her (gay) daze, embarrassed to be caught off-guard. It was unlike her to be on the back-pedal, and she absolutely hated it. Grumpily thanking the shop attendant, they left, with Lexa ("and your muscles") carrying at least 75% of their cargo. Anya was going to _kill them_. They'd bought dresses, accessories, shoes, clutches, more make-up, a hair-curler and two new bottles of 'sexy perfume'.

She didn't even want to think about the bill.

"You could look a _bit_ happier," Clarke noted good-naturedly, ribbing Lexa. That was easy for her to say. They were walking back to Manor Gardens, and Clarke had a merry load of _one bag_ to hold onto. Lexa felt as if she was in the Strongest Woman in the World competition. She grunted, sweating instead of giving a proper answer, and Clarke laughed.

It was inappropriate and unprofessional of her—but Lexa found that she liked it when Clarke laughed, or even better, when _she_ made Clarke laugh. Granted, half of the time it was not on purpose and she was laughing simply because Lexa was behaving like a dolt, but Clarke's laugh was joyful. Her entire body thrummed with mirth as she tipped her head back, exposing her neck as she laughed, raucously and genuinely. Lexa could tell within minutes of meeting her what a genuine laugh sounded like, and what a fake one did.

Eventually, they made it back home—or their temporary home—and Clarke, deciding to give Lexa a bit of relief—decided to take the lifts instead of the stairs. She supposed she knew when Lexa was nearing breaking point, and Lexa was about to stab Clarke with one of their new stilettos.

"Home sweet home," Clarke murmured as she unlocked the door. Sunlight streamed through the open balcony curtains. They'd decided they didn't want to close it whenever they left the building: it screamed suspicion, and so long as they kept certain equipment out of the way, then everything would be okay. When night fell and they conducted further research or rehearsed what they were going to say, the curtains would shut. But in the harmless day-time, they could stay open.

"There's your bag," Clarke handed it over, "with your shoes, your clutch, and your bracelet."

"Anya's gonna kill us." It was truly the only consistent thought in her mind, but by now, she'd thought about it so many times that she couldn't say it without laughing.

Clarke snickered. "I know, right? I can't wait for her to see her bill."

"Mm. I'm gonna go down and get some ice-cream. You want some?"

Lexa didn't want to think about Clarke licking an ice-cream cone. "Nah. I think I'm going to try my dress on again. I'm not sure if—"

"Trust me," Clarke said most seriously, "You looked great in it."

"If you don't mind," Lexa said politely, "I'd just—like to see it."

Clarke raised her hands and took one of the spare keys so she could let herself back in. It didn't take long before her earpiece rustled with noise, and Octavia was chomping away on some sort of food. Clarke's stomach grumbled.

"So." Octavia was like a high school kid eager for gossip. "Have you eaten her out yet?"

"Jesus." Clarke tried not to exclaim it so loudly as she queued up for her ice-cream, in case anybody thought she was mad. "No! And—just give me two seconds!"

"Two seconds to eat her out, or--?"

" _Jesus_!"

She ordered two scoops of strawberry and one of chocolate and sat in the corner, relishing the coolness of the ice-cream against her tongue. She'd been sweating _all day_ trying to find picky Lexa something to wear—even though she looked flat-out gorgeous in _everything_. She glanced around to make sure nobody was within hearing distance and tapped on her earpiece. "I told you: we are maintaining a professional relationship. I'm not having you—or Raven—indulge yourself in some Cupid fantasy."

"Why not? It's—"

"I'm here to seek vengeance for Wells," Clarke said darkly, and silence fell from the other end. In the background she could hear a meek " _oh, shit_ ". "I'm not here to play Lexa, and I'm not here to be your fucking puppet in case you want me to get a taste of the—" she coughed as someone walked past, "—muffin..."

"Clarke—"

"No, you listen to me. I know this is a private comms line but don't you talk about her like that, okay? There are lines and you crossed it. I'm here to avenge Wells. Are you, or are you just gonna chat shit about how I should fuck Lexa Woods?"

"I—I'm here for Wells."

" _Good_. Let me finish my fucking ice-cream in piece."

Clarke slammed against her earpiece angrily, hating how easy it had been to just get a rise out of her. She'd known Octavia and Raven for years. She knew exactly how they behaved, and they had become a close trio of friends because of it. Clarke enjoyed Octavia's laid-back lack of filter, and Raven's occasional geek-outs but, similarly to Octavia, she wasn't afraid of telling the truth. It wasn't quite as bad as Octavia having no filter, but Raven was someone you went to if you wanted the hard truth—or if you didn't want the hard truth, but someone had to tell you.

She gulped down her ice-cream, her mouth frozen for a few minutes, and then she skulked back to the Gardens. She'd been so chipper since she'd left, and now she'd have to find some excuse to behave like a jerk or she'd have to come up with some terrible joke in order to cheer her up. With a slight sigh, she unlocked their door.

Nobody was in.

"Lexa?" she called out timidly. She hadn't taken her weapon out—there hadn't been any need. She advanced slowly, looking through the kitchen and finding nothing. Then she made her way to the bathroom, her bedroom, Lexa's bedroom...

The door was only slightly ajar. Unable to tear her eyes away, she could see Lexa, naked, hanging up her green dress by the wardrobe. She knew if Lexa turned around any minute now, she'd catch Clarke peeking through the slit in the door. But she couldn't help the way her eyes immediately caught onto the slimness of her build, the lean muscle everywhere, and the prominent curve of her ass...jeez, her _ass_...

Clarke shivered and withdrew quickly, her heart pounding in her chest. She squeezed her eyes shut, her hands quaking as she bunched them up. She tried not to think of how Lexa's ass, firm, her skin soft, would feel as Clarke caressed her with her fingertips.

Luckily, she didn't trip over anything—but she _did_ tiptoe back to the entrance, feeling like something of a fraud. Dropping her keys loudly, she shouted, "Lexa, hey! I'm back!"

"I'm in the bedroom!" _I know that_. "I'll come out in a second. You were right. The dress is nice."

Clarke wrenched the fridge door open, grabbing herself a bottle of beer. Her head was filled with Octavia's ridiculous claims of fucking Lexa and then her being a Peeping Tom herself. She wasn't into women—not really. _College phases don't count_ , she kept telling herself. But what else could explain the embarrassing ache between her legs as she caught the behind of a naked Lexa, perfection to a tee? She was like a sculpture; a work of art.

She was everything Clarke couldn't have in a partner, but everything she had to have, too. Falling for Elizabeth Beaumont required sexual attraction as the first step, and Clarke was beginning to realise just how _fucked_ undercover work was.


	3. Come Dine With Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wouldn't even say "take with a pinch of salt" -- this just gets more ridiculous as we skip along. Set up a cliche bingo and get trolleyed. XD  
> Trigger warning for this chapter. It's breezed past--though not out of thoughtlessness, rather the opposite.

Living with a relative stranger had its perks, but it also had its downright " _what the fuck_ " moments, too.

Lexa would get up at an ungodly hour of five in the morning to go on a run, and by the time Clarke, who would dribble into her pillow every night, woke up, Lexa was fresh out of the shower in nothing but a towel. She'd pat dry her hair and be utterly oblivious to the fact that Clarke was still haunted by visions of her in _that dress_ , and one time she'd caught Clarke staring at a droplet of water on her collarbone. Clarke's throat had constricted, suddenly feeling parched. Her mouth had hung embarrassingly low, her jaw slack, and she'd made up some story about seeing a tiny fly on her shoulder and trying to mentally communicate with it.

For an undercover cop, she sure had shit improv stories. She'd have to work with Lexa on that. Other than that, Lexa was a model flat-mate. She made breakfast and it was delicious. She made (protein) pancakes; she made waffles; she made eggs; she made _everything_. The apartment always smelled like delectable food the moment Clarke woke up, and by the time she'd showered, her stomach was rumbling and a plate piled high of food was waiting for her. Lexa, unless she'd stayed up the night before to work, always waited for her to begin eating before she did. It warmed Clarke's heart a little.

On the days they settled for cereal, which Lexa insisted was at least once a week, it was only to trim their waistlines a little. She'd joked about cooking herself to obesity, and Clarke couldn't help but roll her eyes. She was curvy but she wasn't a fitness goddess like Lexa was.

The _only_ time she'd shrieked at about six in the morning was finding Lexa grunting in her doorway. She'd bought a pull-up bar off Amazon without Clarke's knowledge and had decided to perform such exercises in the only doorway that fit—Clarke's bedroom.

Since then, Clarke hadn't complained.

Most days, she pretended to be asleep. One eye would be fixated on the muscles rippling with every pull-up Lexa did, and the sweat patch growing on the back of her tank-top. She'd close her eyes as Lexa got to the end of her set, groaning loudly as she did one more agonising pull-up, and then hop onto the floor, panting.

It was _hot_ , the way Lexa worked out. It was _hot_ , the way sweat trickled all the way down her face, down her neck to the crevice just between her breasts...

Clarke was _fucked_.

Predictably, they really _had_ ended up arguing over Pinot or Shiraz in the supermarket stall, to such a volume that a helper meekly approached them and Lexa had simply snapped, "Go away, freckle-face."

It was genuinely only after that that Clarke had relented and both bottles were purchased. They ignored the slight glare they got at the counter, because it was normal for couples to squabble over certain items—it _wasn't_ normal for a couple (and they weren't a couple) to be engaged in a shouting match over a bottle of wine. And end up buying both anyway.

"I don't know why she was so miserable," Clarke muttered, "We bought two! That's good for business, right?"

"I don't think she appreciated the entire store hearing you call me a ' _fucking winetard_ '."

"I didn't mean that."

"I know. It doesn't even make sense."

They made polite conversation as they walked back to Manor Gardens. It was probably about time Anya got them a car to be honest, but Clarke had come up with the idea of them being super healthy vegan freaks. That had to be withdrawn when upon the first shopping trip, Clarke had ended up buying two frozen pizzas, garlic bread and Doritos. Clarke tried to push the thoughts of Lexa's naked back away from her mind. The delicious and slightly scarred back of hers was only accentuated by the way her ass pushed up, so pert—and her legs were slim, yet muscular, and all Clarke wanted—

"Clarke?"

Clarke snapped back into life, flustered. "Uh, yeah?"

"Just—" Lexa somehow managed to balance all their shopping bags in one hand, using the other hand to grab her away from the street. They were at a zebra crossing and Clarke, in her daydream land, had walked right out onto the street. Clarke tried. She _tried_ not to think of how Lexa's slim, delicate fingers felt as they brushed against her forearm, sending her hair prickling. She _tried_ not to think of how Lexa would look underneath her, her hair down, her eyes blown in desire...

She coughed, aware of the shopping bags she had to haul as the light bleeped green. Lexa eyed her worriedly, and Clarke knew she was already coming up with about fifty follow-up questions to double check and see if she was okay.

She was. She wasn't the problem.

Lexa was _hot_. And _that_ was the problem.

As she tossed and turned the night she'd seen Lexa, she almost considered calling Anya on their SAT phone and admitting she couldn't partner with Lexa because she was _too attractive_. But she'd stopped herself. How could the non-gay one be dribbling over the gay one? Secondly, who else could she trust within the precinct—to Lexa's capability? Something told her that Lexa had been specifically drafted in by Anya and Indra to this precinct for this case, and though Clarke had never seen Lexa on the field, in action, she knew that Anya didn't take these decisions lightly. Octavia, Raven and Bellamy were her friends—but they all had their positions in this.

Lexa _had_ to be the one, and Clarke knew it. Everyone knew it. Of all people, she should not have started a war she could not win. Lexa was irresistible to everyone. Bellamy was like a shark who sniffed at any piece of fresh meat, but he hadn't been wrong in trying to chat Lexa up that day.

They entered their apartment in comfortable silence, Lexa slowly locking the door behind them. Clarke unloaded their grocery bags, and Lexa eventually said it. "Are you okay, Clarke? You...seem out-of-sorts. Do you need me to—?"

"No, no." Clarke smiled thankfully at her anyway, and Lexa nodded, relenting.

"I won't take it higher, you know," Lexa said unnecessarily, before she turned to stuff some fruit in the fridge. Clarke froze in her seat. "I won't report it to the Chief. I won't report it to anyone. Whatever this is..." Lexa swallowed. "I know how hard it is to lose someone you adore in the field. Just—don't think you're alone in this. If you ever wanna talk about it to a non-judgemental third party who's distant enough to not be a friend like Octavia and Raven, you can talk to me."

Clarke nodded mutely, taking a seat on one of the breakfast bench seats. In silence, Lexa continued to pack away their grocery, quirking a smile that Clarke found herself returning as they got to their two bottles of Pinot and Shiraz. She hadn't even considered what Lexa had said: complaint of a partner went both ways, and she _knew_ what Lexa meant. She didn't want to probe any further about her loss, but she knew her worse nightmare would be talking about it to someone like Octavia or Raven. It was nothing on their friendship. She trusted Octavia and Raven with her _life_. But there was something very appealing about talking to someone who...just didn't _know_. She supposed that was why therapists were so in-demand.

"This is for you." Lexa threw the recording device at Clarke, who caught it easily. "I've configured it so it's alright and I've given it a couple of test runs. You won't run into any errors with that. If I put mine in my purse—I mean, it's tiny, so—"

"I know where mine goes," Clarke laughed. "Wanna give a hand putting it in?"

Lexa rolled her eyes in response.

They had back-up ready just around the corner. Octavia had turned the CCTV away from their parked van, setup with recording equipment and a terabyte hard-drive in case Raven needed to file anything away for evidence. Bellamy and Octavia had come loaded with pistols and in Octavia's case, a rifle too ("What? What if they're too far away?"). Raven scolded them both for marring her precious tech van, but she supposed it could've been worse. Last time, Octavia had brought a fucking rocket launcher.

"Thirty minutes," Lexa said, staring at her watch. "Thirty minutes until contact."

"Can they hear what we're saying?" asked Clarke.

"Switch on your earpiece," Lexa instructed softly. "You switch it off anytime you don't want them to intrude. But just let them get everything. They'll need it." Lexa didn't need to say the remainder of that sentence. _They need it to bring Cage and Tsing down for Wells_.

They hastily got dressed, with Lexa opting for minimal make-up. It took Clarke considerably longer to apply make-up and lipstick. She decided she would be the glamorous of the two—but when she stepped out of her room, and Lexa shot up from her seat to greet her, her throat dried up. _A college phase. A college phase_. Lexa's long, curly hair was finally let down, a sea of glorious brown hair that dazzled her. Even with minimal make-up, Lexa was an artist's dream come true. Her green dress only complimented her slim, lean figure, and it was only then she realised—that in her hazy, Peeping Tom session—she'd completely missed the tattoo down her back.

The way the dress was fit left a low back, and so Clarke asked tentatively, "Is—is there a story for that? It seems pretty...big. Your tattoo."

"Astronomy geek," Lexa laughed. "Sorry. There's no big tale for you. But every time someone close to me passes, or...or I think it's my fault...I add a dot there. It's a circle, filled in. I like to think they're up there, like stardust."

"I think that's beautiful," Clarke said faintly.

"It was a _bitch_ to get done," Lexa said, breaking the curse of Clarke staring at her lips for a suspiciously long time. Lexa was painfully oblivious. "It took hours."

"It's worth it."

"I feel gluttonous. I haven't even told you how utterly beautiful you look." Lexa dipped her head, as if she was forgetting her manners. "Red really suits you."

"It's—not too short?"

"If you were aiming for elegance with me, you captured sexiness with you," Lexa said easily, carefully placing the two bottles of wine in gift bags. Clarke reddened behind her, hating the way Lexa could get to her via simple _words_. It was as if they flowed out of her naturally. "I think it suits us. You're the adventurous, bold one. I'm the bookish, quiet one. If you'll let me say, you—well—anyone would be lucky to have you."

"What about you?" Clarke asked recklessly. Lexa frowned. "In this dress?"

Lexa couldn't even dignify that with an answer. Stunned, but—no, she was just stunned—they were interrupted timely by a buzzing in their comms. Lexa tapped her piece, and Raven was calling out to both of them.

"Yo, gays," she said good-naturedly, and she couldn't see the way Lexa nearly turned purple at the comment. Clarke stared at her feet. "Is it clear? A good volume?"

"Absolutely fine." Clarke didn't seem to be talking, so Lexa took over. "We'll call you first if we need anything. Mostly, you just need to stay quiet because we can't have radio feedback if we're having dinner with Wallace and Tsing."

"We'll stay quiet," Raven promised. "Seriously, Woods, it's like you think we've never done a stakeout before."

"Eat dinner. That's an order," Lexa added sternly, "I don't want the sounds of Octavia noisily opening a packet of chips on my side of things."

Octavia groaned on the line.

"We've done the email conferring. The SMS one-time texts. You ready, Raven?"

"Ready when you are, Detective."

 

* * *

 

Lesbians, Clarke decided, for the actual lesbian herself, were punctual. They waited by the door at 6:58pm and as soon as it struck seven, Clarke rang the doorbell.

Greetings were warm and utterly fake. Clarke was the first to hug Dr. Tsing (or 'Lorelei'), complementing her gorgeous, dazzling dress whilst Lexa exchanged kisses on both cheeks with Cage. The duo swapped over, saying the same thing over and over again, about how green was totally Lexa's colour and matched her eyes, and how everyone loved a lady in red.

"Pinot and Shiraz." Lexa turned on the charm, quirking a smile at them. "We couldn't decide. Pinot's my favourite and Shiraz is Jackson's, so...we went for both. I hope you don't mind."

"Of _course_ not." Cage and Lorelei welcomed them into their house, their apartment sparse but expensive-looking. It seemed they were minimalistic in their design tastes, which Lexa appreciated—but the glass table, the whiskey set and the cupboard for all their vintage wines—it almost seemed too much. It was so elaborate she could barely shake her head around it. Some people in this world were _so rich_ —and in Cage and Tsing's case, they didn't deserve a single penny.

"The food smells amazing," Lexa said, the first to make conversation. She wasn't quite sure how Clarke was going to blag her hate of Talbot fish when it was the main dish.

"It's really, really simple," Tsing said. "A drizzle of lemon, basil, dill, and sundried tomatoes."

"My fiancé's quite the cook," Cage said, pulling her close by the waist. They shared a kiss and Lexa shifted uncomfortably, hoping it wouldn't seem odd if her and Clarke didn't. A couple that didn't like PDA—that was acceptable, right?

"Fiancé?" Clarke perked up. _Shit._ Weren't they married? Lexa's leg bounced nervously, and Clarke had to hold her hand. "C'mon, Lorelei, dazzle us!"

"If you must," she played along, and showed them—it was the biggest diamond Lexa had ever seen in her _life_. Her jaw fell open in true shock, aware that she was the topic of laughter all around when it came to everyone else's reactions. _Holy shit_. Yeah, some people were too fucking rich—and it was unfortunate Cage and Tsing had been responsible for Clarke's partner's death. A sense of vengeance strengthened inside her, and she knew, past the awkwardness and the fact that she barely knew Clarke, she was going to have to make this undercover couple thing _work_.

"I don't think I'd have the guts to propose," Lexa said suddenly, catching Clarke's eyes widen in surprise. "I mean...all I read...are these fancy proposals. Imagine me by Pemberley? Imagine walking up to Netherfield and making _the_ most romantic speech? Or even in the film, when Darcy's in the rain?"

"I'm _so_ glad you love _Pride and Prejudice_!" Tsing squealed, grasping onto Lexa's arms suddenly. She took a moment to compose herself at the sudden contact, but ended up smiling. "Cage calls it overrated. I call it romantic."

"Jane Austen's overrated," Cage called, taking the Pinot and Shiraz to the kitchen.

"How dare you!" both Tsing and Lexa shouted after him.

Luckily, Tsing didn't question her beyond that. It was pretty much about the only thing she'd read up on—on Wikipedia, no less—about the book before dinner. She found herself falling asleep after the second chapter, much to Clarke's displeasure. Clarke raised her eyebrows, obviously impressed with her.

When dinner was finally served, it was obvious Tsing had gone into a _lot_ of effort in preparing it. For starters there were perfectly-cooked scallops, seasoned to perfection with the slightest sauce scraped around the plate. By the time the main dish came, the Talbot had been fully filleted, and Clarke nudged her seat a little closer to Lexa.

"You should eat more, babe," Clarke said huskily, and Cage and Tsing averted their eyes, awkwardly. Clarke took advantage of this to shovel more of the fish onto Lexa's plate until she had about two portions. "I know how hard you work out in the gym. You need protein."

"Yeah..." Lexa played around with her food so the potatoes hid the extra fish.

"I just had to gobble the rest up," Clarke explained. "It was so good!"

"Like I said: simplicity's the key," Tsing said, totally buying into it.

A block away in a cramped and all-too-sweaty van, Raven rolled her eyes. The conversation was dull enough to send her to sleep. Lexa and Clarke had tried prying into their work but Cage and Tsing kept private about it. Instead, the tables had turned on Lexa and Clarke, who had to provide a well-rehearsed back-story to each of their characters. It turned out that Elizabeth Beaumont had been on a generous spree at Starbucks and bought the person behind a drink for free. That person had been Jackson Smith, and so Jackson Smith had chased Elizabeth all the way just to say thank you. And from then on, as per Clarke's disgusting words, "we just got on like a house on fire".

"I'd never buy someone a Starbucks," Octavia said matter-of-factly. "It's well expensive just for, like, the smallest Americano! Imagine getting one of those fatass caramel Frappuccinos. It'd be like fifty dollars or some shit."

"I don't think you've visited Starbucks." Bellamy raised an eyebrow at her.

Octavia leant her head against his shoulder and smiled sweetly up at him. "That's because you do all the coffee runs, big brother."

"I should get paid more," Bellamy grumbled.

It was astonishing how well-kept Cage and Tsing kept their secrets. Every time Lexa tried a diversion tactic or Clarke spoke of her medical aspirations, they spoke conversationally but revealed _nothing_ of themselves. If anything, Clarke and Lexa were the ones who had to remember everything they'd said, just in case they got questioned on it again. Somehow, during this dinner, Cage and Tsing were on the front foot—even though Clarke and Lexa had planned it meticulously.

"They're not getting anything," Octavia stated the obvious, frustrated. "How're they not getting anything? It's like Cage and Tsing just got a script handed to them a few hours ago."

"We know a mole got Wells killed," Bellamy said, "what if—"

"It's not possible. Between us three, Anya, Indra, Clarke and Lexa, there isn't a single soul who knows about this operation." Raven rubbed her temples, scrunching her eyes shut. She couldn't see any one of them betraying the precinct, or Clarke, or Lexa, or _Wells_ —but she also felt like she was in the middle of fucking ' _Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy_ '.

 

* * *

 

Cage laughed raucously as Lexa slyly mentioned rich parents funding their housing here at Manor Gardens. He proposed a toast to 'rich dads' and ended up gulping his entire goblet of wine, merry and reckless. Lexa wondered if he kept doing that, if he'd just let _something_ slip... _anything_ slip. They weren't doing well. Every single sly question had been fended off, and it was becoming impossible to get anything useful from the dinner.

"If you'll excuse me," Lexa said courteously, smiling across the table, "I'm just going to powder my nose."

Clarke stared after her. _Powder her nose? Did—what?!_

Instead, she kept up lively conversation with the to-be-married couple. When Lexa was starting to take longer and longer, she began to worry—but if there was one thing Clarke was being good at, it was being a motor-mouth.

Lexa yanked the device from her purse, ensuring the door to the bathroom was locked. Switching it on to two-way communications, she whispered into it, "Did you get that?"

"Lexa?" Raven's voice came back a little fuzzy. "Are you okay? Where are you?"

"Bathroom. Quick break. I can't get through to him. Every single question—"

"—He's got an answer for. I know. I don't know what the fuck happened, but if we're compromised _now_ , and we've only just started, then we're really _fucked_ —"

Hammering on the door stopped them both from talking. Raven whispered a quick 'see you later' before Lexa hastily turned the comms off, shoving them inside her purse. She stood up to look at her reflection in the mirror. _Stay calm. Relax. There's no way there's another mole_. The hammering continued, so she opened it exasperatedly, only to be pinned back against the sink by a livid—and hungry, judging by the sound of her belly—Clarke.

" _What_ ," she said lowly, "are you playing at?"

"Status report," Lexa hissed back, able to do so because Clarke's face was merely inches from hers.

"They can hear us!"

"Yeah, and I need to know why _none_ of our questions are getting through!"

"We'll have to discuss it after!"

"After—mmph—"

Clarke gave her no warning. She shoved her violently up _into_ the sink, yanking Lexa's legs around her hips as she kissed her, open-mouthed. Her tongue delved in, and Lexa could feel the knobs of the 'hot' and 'cold' water digging into her back. It was painful, but _fuck her_ , Clarke was a good kisser. She kissed hard, because, Lexa assumed, she was fuming; she was raging. But it softened, up until Clarke nipped her bottom lip, her eyes blown wide as she stared at Lexa, her lipstick slightly smeared onto Lexa's face too. Before Lexa could laugh, Clarke kissed her again to shut her the fuck up, her hands sliding down her sides to grab her ass, until—

"I'm—I'm _so sorry_ —" _that_ was Cage Wallace, and Lexa broke off their kiss, red-faced. He made a gesture with his hands to cover his eyes. "I didn't..."

"Sorry," Clarke said sweetly, using a piece of toilet roll to wipe the smeared lipstick. "Um, I guess—honeymoon period?"

"Yeah...yeah." Cage shook himself, joined shortly by Tsing. Lexa wanted to sink into herself. As if this moment could not get any more embarrassing. And it couldn't, so she hopped off the sink and averted her gaze to the wonderful tiling in the bathroom. It really was quite nice.

Tsing blinked. "Are you gays—uh, _guys_ —okay?"

"Yeah," they both said in unison, wiping their lips.

"Honeymoon period," Cage offered a little haplessly. The duo smiled meekly.

"Oh. _Ohhh_. Oh. Okay. Oh. _Oh_."

 

* * *

 

It had been a total failure. Out of emotion, they'd planted a total of _zero_ bugs and cameras in Wallace and Tsing's place—so unless they were likeable enough for dinner round two, then the possibility of snooping on them was null. They'd have to go old-fashioned—cameras and cloned phones.

"That was fucking _stupid_!"

"No— _you_ were fucking stupid!"

"I had to give a status report! There was some sort of connection error! You're not an idiot, Clarke. You knew none of those questions were getting through!"

"So you just go off to the bathroom and—"

"I had to ask for a Plan B! I had to! Or do you not have them around here?"

"Of course we do, it's just—"

"You know what—fuck this." Lexa threw her purse against the wall, tossing her heels with it as well. She ran a hand through her hair, pacing furiously up and down their spacious apartment. "We're _fucked_. They're acting all nice and lovely but they _know_!"

"If they know, Lexa, you can't play as if you know _they_ know!"

"Oh, so I'll just get mowed down like a _fucking idiot_?"

" _No_! We play the long game. The patient game. We _win_!"

"We won't win if there's a fucking rat in our ranks!" Lexa roared, smacking her fist against the kitchen bench. Silence fell, then, and Lexa turned to Clarke, her nostrils flaring a little. She didn't want to ask. A part of her understood that Clarke knew what was coming anyway. Lexa had names: Bellamy, Raven, Octavia, Anya, Indra and Clarke. Clarke's previous partner had been killed in action. Which made... "Someone got Wells killed. Someone close to him. You're saying we practically have no plan B—so how many times did you block him from it, huh? Are you the rat, Clarke?"

SLAP.

The moment it occurred, Clarke wanted to fold into herself in self-hatred. Lexa reeled back, stunned by the impassioned, physical contact. It had come out of absolutely nowhere—but Clarke couldn't reconcile the moment with Lexa's accusation. It was _Wells_. The 'sorry'—genuine, broken—got stuck in her throat, and she shook as she stared at Lexa. It hadn't caused any damage to the eye, or any bruising as she could see of the moment—but this was _not_ okay. She _had_ to tell Lexa that. Physical violence either way—it didn't matter _what_ Lexa said—should not have overwhelmed her so.

 _Shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit, SHIT_.

"I can't believe you'd even ask that," Clarke snapped, gathering up her things—her purse, her heels, her phone—and made her way to her bedroom. "I lost my _best friend_ to those two dicks and you think I'm the mole?"

"I had to. I have to run it by everyone. You know it's not me because I just joined."

"Right. So your immunity makes it okay for you to lord it over us all."

"No, I'm just—"

"Just shut the fuck up," Clarke said viciously, and meaning every word of it. "Good fucking night."

Lexa watched helplessly as Clarke gathered her things and headed for bed.

A thousand thoughts pounded her mind, and they weren't pleasant. It was too obvious. The blockade of questions had been too obvious—it was as if they'd send a script in advance for Cage and Tsing to study. She mentally had to rule Anya and Indra out, simply because once, a long time ago, they had saved her life—brought her up in a women's shelter, and got her out. She owed them her life—and she could not imagine Anya cashing in on Wallace and Tsing's RED cranked up people's veins. It seemed like a stimulant—kinda just like meth—except with the intention of distribution across Washington DC, it looked as if it wanted to wipe all competition out. That included H. That included coke. Meth, of course. And they still were no closer to a formula, a drug production warehouse...

Lexa rummaged a hand through her hair. She didn't have time to think about the others: she had narrowed it down to Raven, Octavia and Bellamy. Octavia and Bellamy seemed like outsiders; surely the other knew what the other did. They were conjoined at the hip. Raven, she wasn't so sure of. She was excellent with computers so she'd know how to wire fifty thousand dollars to Wallace & Son, but she had no means to that kind of money. None of them did.

So she was back to square one.

Clenching her jaw, she unpacked one vintage gift she'd taken from the women's shelter: a chess board. Taking her time, she made a sticky-note of 'OCTAVIA' and sellotaped it to the black Queen figure. Next was Raven as the knight; then it was Bellamy as the King. Anya and Indra served as Bishops. They were excluded, immediately—and Lexa wondered if that was a fault. If she overlooked them so easily...wasn't that the point?

She couldn't—she didn't—have the heart to add Clarke in there. Clarke had been right; Lexa had been callous. Clarke had lost her best friend and her partner doing this case. If anything, she was going to see justice served—not warp the system.

Lexa's heartbeat sped up as she thought of her, the feeling of her lips crashing against hers still heavy in her mind, on her lips, tingling through her body. It had been for show, but Clarke...

_Fuck it. Fuck. It._

Changing into something more comfortable, and shivering slightly in just a tank-top and joggers, she approached Clarke's room. It had been shut, but not locked. An impolite person would've picked it. Lexa decided she would be courteous tonight, and she knocked three times—loudly, but not too much.

It took a few minutes for the door to swing open. The room was dark, and Clarke had clearly been sleeping.

"Sorry," was the first thing that came out of Lexa's mouth, "I didn't mean to wake you."

"You've woken me now." Clarke didn't seem the patient type. "What's up?"

"I just...I want to say I'm sorry. I was out of line. I was frustrated, and—I lashed out."

Clarke stared at her for a moment. Lexa suddenly felt very naked under the ferocity of her gaze. It was as if her insides were being turned out for examination, until Clarke grabbed the back of her head and kissed her again, gently this time. Lexa's eyes fluttered shut, her mind switching off completely as Clarke coaxed her lips open, gently slipping her tongue in. It was nothing like the rough and hard and almost furious kiss she'd bestowed upon Lexa in the bathroom. It was soft; it was tender; it was exploration. Clarke kissed her, her hand trailing from Lexa's cheek down to her chest, and when they both pulled away, they were panting.

"Does it hurt?" Clarke asked softly, her fingertips trailing over her slap mark. It had left slight bruising. "Lexa, I shouldn't have—"

"And I shouldn't have," Lexa decided. "Words can be as vicious as actions."

Clarke tugged on the bottom of Lexa's tank-top, biting her lip in consideration. But this couldn't go on—not for tonight. Clarke had hit Lexa. Lexa had accused Clarke of being the police mole. Nothing had gone right. Instead, Lexa kissed Clarke again, this time her being the one initiating it, and left it there.

"Goodnight, Clarke."

"'Night, Lexa."


	4. The Rat

_SLAP_.

Clarke felt Lexa's kiss tingle on her lips, and then felt the slap sting her palm. It was like a constant cycle of tenderness then lightning-bolt pain. Physical contact was unacceptable under any circumstance—but Lexa had accused her of _killing_ her best friend on-duty, for the Mayor, just like that.

And that was it. Lexa had a blasé, cutting way of saying things. Clarke knew it made her a good Detective. Hell, it made her one of the best. She got straight to the point. Bellamy was one of the best she'd worked with, but he was so wishy-washy with words sometimes that Clarke would take over. Lexa hadn't been _rude_ —she'd discounted Clarke's personal relationship with Wells completely. Clarke couldn't tell if it was part of her duty or if Lexa just didn't understand the complexity she held with Wells, despite the fact that they were partners.

Had Lexa ever had a partner like Wells? _Probably not._

Clarke writhed in her bed as she tried to clamp her eyes shut, forcing herself to sleep. There was a worrying lack of self-pity in her belly. She had made no secret of her desire to avenge Wells in the dirtiest, ugliest way possible, and Lexa hadn't stopped her. But she tossed and turned in bed, thinking of Lexa's stunned expression as she reeled back from the contact. She thought back to what Lexa had accused her of, and in her nightmares, she slapped Lexa again and again and again.

"I can't stop," she said, in her dream. Clarke stared down at her hand, distraught. "Lexa, I can't..."

Lexa wasn't bruised. She stood tall and proud. "I'm not sorry for what I had to say."

" _Stop it_ ," Clarke begged her, a sob catching in her throat as her hand, driven by autopilot, whipped out to slap the dream version of Lexa again. Lexa stumbled back, her voice echoing: " _this is your fault, Clarke_ " over and over—and then she'd return to standing stoically in front of her. Clarke felt unwitting anger bubble up in her hand again. And again. And _again_ —

Clarke shot up from the bed, drenched in sweat. She blinked hard. It was 3am, and she felt sick. Her lips had tasted sweet with Lexa's kiss before bed; now she tasted treachery and poison. Clarke wondered if she was ever forgiven, if the situation would ever be forgotten. She knew her brain had already built an impenetrable fortress to keep it in.

Her throat was parched. Sleepily, she creaked her door open, and stopped in the doorway.

Perched on the sofa was Lexa, tapping furiously onto her laptop. Not quite able to face her just yet—and yes, she recognised cowardice when it cropped up—Clarke quietly shut the door, rushing back to the safety of her covers. Her palm stung again, and she squeezed her eyes shut.

 

* * *

 

It was 8am on the dot, and Lexa was already chomping somewhat madly on her cereal. She was staring into space—into nothing—as she wolfed down her breakfast, accompanied by some strange-coloured protein shake of sorts. Clarke plodded from her bedroom, stalling by the hallway. Lexa hadn't noticed her yet. And she wondered, as Lexa drifted off into space, if she was thinking about the same thing Clarke was. Clarke could still taste the sweetness, the bitterness, the ache—plastered all over Lexa's full lips—as she'd kissed her goodnight. She could still remember her hand squeezing her ass in Tsing and Wallace's bathroom, and the clash of tongues they'd endured as Clarke almost hate-kissed her. She could remember every tiny detail of Lexa's tattoo, a gorgeous piece of artwork scaling down her back...

"You gonna just stay there and watch me eat?" Lexa asked lightly, peering around the corner. Clarke hadn't exited her room noisily. "You okay?"

Clarke stared tiredly at her. Were they really going to play the "everything's okay" game?

She muttered something incoherent and flopped down on a seat by the breakfast bench, pouring out a bowl of cereal for herself. Lexa had opted for the bran flakes; Clarke had gone all-out Cookie Crisp. Still, she couldn't help but stare at Lexa—who seemed to be looking at anything else _except her_. The bruise on her face, from when Clarke had hit her, was growing worryingly prominent, and she wondered if that was why the atmosphere suddenly felt like a vacuum, and her head was going to implode.

"I got calamine lotion from the drugstore this morning," Lexa said plainly as she took another spoonful of cereal, almost offhandedly, as if she'd read Clarke's mind. "It'll just help cool it down. You can't apply hydrocortisone cream to your face—the skin's too sensitive there."

"Yeah..." Clarke trailed off, feeling the guilt swell in her chest. If she hadn't just lashed out in that moment of anger—if she'd played it calm, and rational—then there'd be no need for calamine lotion at all. "You applied it yet?"

"Pharmacist says two to three times a day, but it's pretty much when required. It's just a soothing kinda cream. Stings like a bitch." Lexa finished off her cereal and moved onto gulping down her protein shake. Her voice was strangely removed, almost _alien_ , to all of this—and Clarke, the masochist in her, almost wanted her to be _angry_. She wanted Lexa to hit her back. She wanted some sort of revenge that would embarrass her—because Lexa had been doing her job last night, and maybe Clarke wasn't ready for the field. If the very mention of Wells' name caused a reaction like it did last night, then—"Don't worry. It'll heal."

"I wasn't worrying," Clarke lied.

Lexa set her protein shake aside and laughed. "Anyone ever tell you you're a shit liar?"

 _Yeah, practically everyone_. Clarke decided to lament Lexa's latest statement and watched as Lexa finished her breakfast, wolfing it all down, and didn't touch any of hers. She'd lost her appetite. Seeing Lexa like this was not normal—even though she had no idea what _normal_ was supposed to be between them.

Did undercover cops get regular debriefs on how _fucked_ their work was? They had to pretend to be head over heels in love with someone they barely knew? They had to work to solve a case that had plagued the precinct for over a year and ended up with a dead officer? That they had a mole to source out?

And now it was as if they hadn't kissed before—one for the cover, and the other a genuine goodnight. Clarke _knew_ she didn't want things to move quickly with Lexa—if there even _was_ anything except all-out lust—but at some point, they had to talk about it, right? They couldn't just carry this on forever. It wasn't healthy.

"Last night—"

"Forget about it," Lexa cut her off curtly. "It's forgotten."

Clarke stared at her. "Lexa, I don't want you to _forget_ about it like I didn't hit you. It was fucking wrong."

"I pushed a button too far. You could've done worse. You _might've_ done worse."

 _Maybe_. "That doesn't mean it's okay."

"I never said it was okay." Lexa's voice was tense. "You fucking hit me. I'm not saying you didn't. I'm just saying I said some things that were way out-of-line. I won't ask forgiveness for what I said, Clarke. I had to ask. It doesn't matter at this stage about being sorry. You did something fucked up and so did I. But if you're looking for some advice or forgiveness here with me, it isn't here. And it doesn't mean all of that can't live in conjunction with the work we still have to do."

"Right. Work."

"Don't look at me like that."

"Like what?"

"Like you want me to kiss you again." The sentence completely derailed Clarke. She froze, and Lexa set her protein shake aside. Her gaze was scarily probing, and Clarke wasn't sure if she'd blinked at all. "We're supposed to be professionals, Clarke. What kind of world do we live in, if we're _cops_ and we can't even control ourselves?"

"Probably the kind of world that makes us human," Clarke fired back. The heat in her voice could not go explained; she wasn't sure why she was so adamant about it, but Lexa's hint at simply shutting themselves off into their dumb-as-fuck covers was almost offensive. She wasn't sure if she was still on-edge over what happened last night, but she knew she couldn't be wrong. They were detectives, but they could kiss. They could want. They could be _lonely_...

Lexa was muttering. "It's what fails us every time. Fucking emotions."

"What?"

"It starts, and I feel it," Lexa said. Clarke squinted at her, baffled. "I'm not getting you killed like I did my last partner."

"Woah— _woah_ —I'm not dying. Fuck, I'm not going _anywhere_ —"

"Last night happened," Lexa decided gruffly, fixing her gaze at a spot behind Clarke's head. She wondered if Lexa had burnt a hole through the wall yet, the way her eyes seemed to burn. "It happened and it was _fucked_. And we're okay, because _I'm_ fucked, _you're_ fucked—we're _both_ fucked, and it's gonna eat us up alive or we're gonna move on because we have enough enemies in this world right now."

She watched as Lexa finished off the last of her shake and then flopped down on the sofa, turning the television on to watch some horribly old episode of _The Powerpuff Girls_ on Cartoon Network. Clarke's heart drummed, wondering if that was a signal—that that was the end of it—except Lexa wasn't the only party in this. Clarke had 50% of the say, and she intended to take it. Somehow, she'd conjured up a tube of calamine lotion in her right hand, and it was then—only then—that Clarke leapt into action, bounding over the sofa in a clumsy stunt and snatched the lotion away from her.

Clarke's hand had hurt Lexa the last time; she wanted Lexa to remember her touch as something gentle; something soft; _something_.

"What the—" Lexa frowned, gazing at her empty hand. "Are you trying to help me or not?"

"I am!" Clarke chewed on her bottom lip. "I realise that probably wasn't the best way to tell you my intent or anything, but I promise—"

"You're not going to slap me again?"

Lexa said it lightly, but Clarke felt her chest ache in guilt. Wordlessly, Clarke squeezed some of the lotion onto her quivering fingers. "Just tell me if it hurts. Don't be a fucking hero, okay?"

Lexa's hand shot out to grab her wrist before Clarke could touch her face again. "You're shaking."

"I'm not."

"I can feel you."

"It's...it's cold!"

"It was just a joke," Lexa said, "but I'm sorry if it was too soon."

Clarke stared at her, trying to gauge her. She couldn't tell if Lexa was saying it to just calm her down, or if she meant it. Lexa seemed the genuine type. A swindler and smooth-talker, but mostly her integrity was intact. Clarke nodded, and Lexa, hesitantly, let go of her wrist.

Lexa sighed and allowed Clarke to gently rub the lotion over the bruise. It wasn't too much, and it wasn't too purple. Within days it would turn a yellowy-green colour, but Clarke hadn't hit Lexa hard. Still—the fact she'd done so weighed down on her chest like a stack of bodies. It had been entirely inappropriate. She stood by her defence: Lexa had hit a nerve. But she'd been doing her job: her job was to _hit nerves_. Clarke's job was not to hit co-workers.

They sat in silence as Clarke listened to Lexa hiss mildly in pain, her body flinching on instinct. Neither of them spoke—not of conversational dailies, or of the kiss they'd shared last night. Clarke's heart was bursting with questions. Why then? Why had Lexa kissed her, after all their arguing? Why had Clarke responded? Why hadn't she just—pushed Lexa away? It wasn't as if Tsing and Wallace were by the doorway staring at them.

"There." Clarke averted her gaze, concentrating on fumbling with the lid and fixing it back onto the tube of lotion. "Does that feel alright?"

"Yeah...thanks." Lexa yawned grandly, stretching her arms far and wide. Clarke eyed the open laptop on the desk, the messiness of the sofa, and the fact that a pile of cushions had been moved from an even distribution to a centralised location.

Lexa had been working all night.

"You," Clarke said, "need some rest."

"I need to know where this money's coming from," Lexa fired back. "Fifty-thousand dollars—in one blow? Isn't that fucking _weird_ to you? If we get a lead on the money trail, we'll at least be able to crack down on one of the key investors. I'll bet my ass that it's tumbled so secretively because that investor wants to protect their identity—not from regular-ass cops—but from _us_."

"What're you saying?"

"The mole," Lexa said sombrely. "Whoever's been feeding Tsing and Wallace information has been receiving money in exchange. They've passed on secret attack routes so the distribution vehicles can evade them. In return, they invest in RED, which has successfully been passed onto drug gangs and sold. They're profiting."

"This is what you've spent all night doing?"

Lexa didn't speak. She didn't want to tell Clarke she was still thinking about their kiss. She didn't want to think about Clarke's tongue in her mouth last night at dinner. She didn't want to think about the way Clarke called her _babe_ , in that husky tone of hers. She didn't want to think about that tight fitting red dress. She didn't. Want. To. Think.

"Give me the SAT phone," Lexa ordered, as they stood at a standstill. "Give me a chance."

 

* * *

 

Clarke slouched on the sofa as Lexa grew more and more frustrated on the SAT phone. She couldn't hear Indra's side of the conversation, but as she cracked a peanut, tossed one in the air and caught it in her mouth, she felt pride swell in her chest. Solid. Still—there were more important things to think about, and she hated that Lexa seemed to bear the brunt of it. Ever since she'd taken on this case, or been part of it, she'd been the one looking out for Plan B. She'd been the one researching company finances. She'd been the one arguing with their Sergeant on the SAT phone.

"Fifty-thousand dollars, Indra! You can't ignore that. You can't say it was some one-off transaction."

A pause for Indra's response. Watching Lexa getting more and more heated on the phone was starting to get inappropriately attractive; she gesticulated more; she grew red in the face; she mussed her hair up until it was kind of like a nest.

"What do you mean it will take weeks? How many sponsors sponsor fifty-k into _one_ company—and we have the name, too!"

Pause.

"Bullshit! Bull to the fucking shit—do you want me to spell that out to you?— _B—_ "

Pause.

"Fuck you! You don't wanna help in this case? Fuck—you wanna tell me something then?"

Pause.

"Then what about _you_? You're inside Anya's ear all the time. How do I know this message will get passed on? How do I know _you're_ not the fucking rat who got Wells Jaha killed?" There was a shorter pause this time. "Oh yeah? You had all the files. You're like her fucking parrot. Except you could've been someone else's parrot info-feeder, not Anya's."

Clarke cringed. So Lexa was used to hitting it where it hurt. _Low fuckin' blow..._

Indra had obviously hung up.

" _Fuck_!" Lexa roared, chucking the SAT phone across the floor. Clarke rushed over towards it to make sure it wasn't broken. She didn't know when they'd need to contact the Chief or even the Mayor if news broke. Lexa rarely lost control of her temper. "She's speaking to me like I'm a fucking _idiot_!"

"Or maybe she's right," Clarke said quietly, "maybe technology isn't as fast as we'd like it to be."

"That company is worth billions of dollars," Lexa said, her voice shaking. "If you look at them on the shares, you'll see their shares are rising. It's—a matter of putting a dime in and getting a thousand bucks back. If we don't crack their secret soon, we're fucked."

"We will. Lexa, we will."

"You know what she said, too?" Lexa thrust her face into her hands, yelling into her palm in frustration. "She told me to _get on with my job_."

Clarke watched her closely, seeing the rage, the initial fury fade into something shameful, as if she had just overstepped a line. Granted, shouting at your Sergeant over the SAT phone probably _was_ crossing a line, but she still hadn't grown close enough to Lexa to truly understand why Anya and Indra had drafted her in, specifically for this case. As Lexa's breathing calmed down, she placed a tentative hand on her shoulder.

"Let's do our jobs then," Clarke said quietly, "You take Tsing. I'll take Cage. And we'll pin Wells' murder on them."

"Celebrate over a bottle of Pinot," Lexa said drily.

Clarke snorted. "Shiraz, you tit."

 

* * *

 

"This is our fantastic team, working on a revolutionary Alzheimer's drug," Cage Wallace said proudly. Clarke followed him with as much eagerness as she could muster, jotting down some gibberish for notes as they walked around his impressive facility. "It's not just about breaking up the plaque build-up. That's been done, tried, and failed. We're talking about preventing those strands from _becoming_ a plaque in the first place."

"That's...I mean, I don't know anyone else doing that," Clarke said, painfully honest.

"Right?" Cage's ego must've ballooned by now as he strode through his building. It was pristine and near-total-white. It was completely modern, with escalators and glass tables and banisters. It looked like something out of _The Matrix_. "If we actually develop that, and it passes through all stages of clinical trials— _boom_ —we have twenty years of patent on that. It's ours."

"So...I assume that means it costs a lot of money to _make_ a drug," Clarke said slowly, and Cage laughed good-naturedly in response. _Okay. Yes. It takes a lot. Cut the crap will you, Clarke?_ "So do you, er, get a lot of investors? Or does that come after you develop the drug or it passes a certain clinical trial?"

"Usually after phases I and II," Cage said, rubbing his chin. "Sometimes the market is so desperate for a particular drug that they will fund it from the beginning."

"Oh?" Clarke tried to be subtle. "Have you ever had that?"

Cage took a moment to consider it, and then shook his head. "No. It'd be too risky for the investor. I mean, risky is as risky comes. If I'll have you know—" he leant in closer, and Clarke could smell whiskey in his breath. He'd been drinking this morning. "I've been working on a little something for the police?"

"The police?" Clarke squeaked, frantically looking around so no-one could hear. "They're investing in your company?"

"Not exactly, Jackson. But it'll stop crime-rate—especially drug-related ones, too. I like to think it's for the greater good. You keep it on the down-low for me and I promise you, you'll be impressed when it comes out."

Clarke simpered pathetically in response. It had 'RED' screaming all over it.

They walked around Cage's building in amicable silence, occasionally chatting about Clarke's college stories (of which she had many) and her aspirations as a medical student. She'd laid it on thick with the pharmaceutical industry stuff—and it seemed to please Cage. If anything, he showed her a huge laboratory focused on anticancer drugs ("considering that jerk decided to raise prices on his") but that was about it.

Clarke knew there was something else. The building was so vast, and excluding the secret hideaways she was _sure_ someone as rich as Cage would have, she hadn't even been shown half of it. Still, she thanked Cage graciously for his time and spoke some shit about hoping it would help her down her future career path. Cage kissed her on the hand, and then on the cheek, goodbye—before hailing a taxi for it.

He was a gentleman. A gentleman that had killed her best friend.

Brain pounding with blood, she tried to call Lexa, whose phone went straight to voicemail. Cursing under her breath, she took a detour back to Manor Gardens only to find a sticky-note plastered on the kitchen bench. It simply read:

> _On a shopping trip from hell. You were with him. The other half._
> 
> _No more dresses please._
> 
> _L_

Clarke really, _really_ tried to imagine Lexa on a shopping trip with Lorelei Tsing of all people without behaving like a bored child, and ended up bursting into laughter. Tipping the taxi driver for his time, she slouched on the sofa and flicked on the television.

Lexa, meanwhile, was literally in hell.

Tsing had taken her lean muscles, glistening with sweat in the sunlight and shown off by her tank-top, to be a sign of strength—and had therefore placed every single shopping bag within her grasp. Every step she took with Tsing felt as if she was deadlifting something illegal, like, a fucking rocket launcher with a tonne-heavy bomb strapped to it. It should've been illegal. In the sunlight, she wasn't sure how much water she'd lost, and it was not helped when Tsing carefully wiped her down with some nappy towels and bought her a bottle of ice-cold water, which she guzzled down.

"You know..." Tsing scratched the back of her neck, amidst the ten-plus shopping bags they had already garnered, "We haven't even picked something for you yet! Let it be my treat. To girl power."

 _No, no, no, no, no, NO._ Hating herself, Lexa weakly picked up her half-finished bottle of water and said feebly, "Girl power."

It was as if the world had been meaning to tease her—for a while, too. Tsing took her everywhere and anywhere to try on dresses, jumpsuits, accessories, necklaces, bracelets—and bought them _all_. It only narrowed her suspicions. Tsing was well-off anyway—she was a doctor. But she wondered if all these dresses and accessories had been bought by Cage Wallace's dirty-ass money, and if she could get some kind of trace back to him.

Lexa was supposed to be a natural at this. Her history was littered with narcotics--undercover ops. Her partner then, Costia, had been on a double-agent mission to infiltrate a notorious drug gang within DC and had ended up getting sucked into the world of drugs herself. Lexa watched as Costia puked her guts out, puked her life out—just for the sake of another high. If anyone ever told her that she was getting in too deep with an investigation, she'd be the first to pull out. The image of Costia, clean for a week before succumbing to her cravings yet again, a needle stuck in her arm as she died, foaming at the mouth—would stay with her for life. And so she withdrew from narcotics, withdrew from the police force—until Anya begged her to take this on.

It seemed simple on paper. Lexa had never been keen on drugs—substances of any kind—and if this cocky, square-faced shit thought he was going to be the new drug kingpin around Washington DC, then he had another thing coming. He had turf wars. Gang wars. Distribution errors. Distribution U-turns. So far, they'd evaded it. Anya had confided in Lexa: there was a mole within the precinct, feeding information to someone above her.

The only position above her that screamed _treacherous twat_ was Theolonious Jaha.

That presented a problem in itself. What kind of sick-minded dick would risk his own son's life, in the line of duty, for fifty thousand bucks? Well, as Anya said, that was what she was paying Lexa to find out. With Lexa's hatred for drugs and her desire for revenge on the entire community—and she'd go fucking vigilante and bring them all down one by one if she had to—she would avenge Wells Jaha. She did not know the man, but she knew Clarke Griffin. She knew of Clarke's intelligence, often recklessness, her charm, integrity...her beauty...

Her phone buzzed, and she excused herself from Tsing at the cafe. "You okay?" Lexa asked quietly.

"Fine," Clarke said. "Look, I've got news—"

"Well, it's good one of us has. I've just been shopping for an _entire day_ with Lorelei Tsing."

"Oh my God."

"Go on."

"Cage Wallace's firm is fucking awesome. He's creating revolutionary treatments for brain tumours, Alzheimer's...all sorts." Clarke paused, and Lexa waited for some kind of punch-line. "He mentioned that investors didn't usually buy into his stuff until phases one and two of his trials. If we're looking at the fifty-k, that makes no sense. I asked him if there had been anyone desperate enough to invest early, and he'd joked about the police. I don't know if that connects him."

"What exactly did he say about the police?"

"He implied they were investing in Cage's company. I dunno how much. He said whatever it was, it would decrease crime rates dramatically—especially drug-related ones."

"Does that point him to 'RED'? It's essentially a drug."

"I don't _know_ , Lexa. Until we get a sample and test it in the lab, we've got nothing. Just words."

"We'll figure something out."

"Okay. Just—make a show, will you?"

"Right. Okay." Lexa hated this part of being undercover. Pretending to be someone you weren't. She supposed that was the whole point, but when it involved lovingly screeching, "see you later, I love you my baby" in front of the entire cafe—yeah, it was fucking shit.

Tsing raised her eyebrows in amusement. "Jackson, I'm guessing?"

"She's very fond of the loud pet-names," Lexa grunted, surprised to see that Tsing had ordered coffee for them. It was in a small cup, and Tsing leant forwards.

"Turkish coffee," she said, "Strong but sweet—and it's definitely an acquired taste. I wanted you to try it. I suppose it's the food version of yourself, Liz!" Tsing laughed at her own joke, and Lexa attempted (quite badly) too. "Cage insists it's awful but I love it."

Warily, Lexa took a sip and found herself reeling from the bitterness of the strength of the coffee bean itself—until it frazzled on her tongue—a kind of indescribable sweetness that she could not associate with anything else. Lexa didn't like it, particularly, but she didn't dislike it. It was intriguing, and she took another small sip, her brows furrowed.

"It's nice," she began slowly, "but it's kinda like...you need to think about it being nice. You know?"

"No," Tsing laughed. "But you're on my good side. Cage isn't."

They spoke lightly of topics that didn't matter. Rarely did they delve into deep topics like politics, or science, or even the drug and crime problem prominent in Washington DC—but Lexa found that if Tsing was indeed innocent, and she had no idea of her husband's cooperation with a police rat—then she was okay. If she wasn't, then she was a fucking good actor.

"I tell you what." Lexa leant in closer, as if she was confiding to Tsing a secret. "Next time, for everything you've done for me, these beautiful dresses...I know it's not much, but I know an amazing place that does shisha and awesome Turkish coffee. It's authentic and low-key. How about I take you there someday?"

Tsing's eyes sparkled in appreciation. "Your girlfriend won't mind?"

"Of course not," Lexa laughed this off too easily, "There's a difference between girlfriend and _girl friend_."

"Oh, I know, but—"

"So you'll come?" Lexa asked eagerly, finishing off her bottle of water. She didn't even want to look at the number of shopping bags she'd have to lug towards the nearest taxi rank. "It's on me."

"Then...it's a deal," Tsing agreed quickly, enthusiastically. Lexa watched with a calculated smile as she sprung up from her seat, ready to go. She rocked on the balls of her feet, and grinned broadly at Lexa. "You know, I'm so glad that I have a friend who understands me beyond my work."

Lexa forced a smile. "Me too."

 

* * *

 

"You should turn Cage and Tsing's apartment, carefully, into some sort of Faraday cage," said the voice on the other end of the burner phone. It was using a voice distortion app. Nobody but Theolonious Jaha could not tell if it was male, female, or even the same source that had eventually gotten his son killed. "I think the girls are onto something—something about a big, mysterious deposit of money into Cage's bank account."

"How exactly did they find that?" Jaha snapped.

"A computer?" Even with the app, the voice sounded confused. "I don't know. All this tech shit's above my head."

"Then you carry on and you make sure you hear every single word exchanged between those two," Jaha said lowly, his eyes on the door in case anybody else barged in. "I want weekly reports. Fuck, I want daily reports. I want some fucking _progress_!"

"Yes, sir—"

"You realise if I lose my stake within Wallace & Son, how fucked up that is gonna be for you?" Jaha said viciously. "You'll be found as a traitor and imprisoned; I'll go to jail for the indirect manslaughter of my own son."

"I was sorry to hear about that. I never got to say it."

"He was on the wrong side." Jaha gritted his teeth, staring at the picture on his desk. Wells had just graduated from the Police Academy, and both son and father were beaming through the roof. With a soft touch, he turned the photo-frame face-down. "Don't give Tsing and Wallace away; don't give the girls away. We'll see how it plays out. When it's time for us to intervene, we'll do it."

"And the Detectives? Will they meet the same fate as Wells?"

Jaha contemplated it for a moment. "I'll take it, if it ever reaches that point."

"What do _I_ get out of this time? They're getting close and they're getting close _quick_ ," said the voice. "I feel like I'm doing your shitty, dirty work and _I'm_ the one at risk of being found out. I can't keep playing your puppet."

"You're my puppet so long as I require you to be," Jaha said lowly into the phone, making sure his ally—of sorts—heard the message well and clear. "You don't decide whether you get an 'out' or not. The first piece of information you fed me was your 'in'. You picked. I'll pick your 'out'."

"What you—I—Wallace and Tsing—what they did to Wells, I didn't—"

"Of course you knew. Deep inside," Jaha snapped. "Your salary doubles. Am I making myself clear?"

There was a pause on the other end of the line. Perhaps the mysterious info-dropper had finally found a deal he or she couldn't refuse—or they couldn't see how else this was going to end up. It felt like signing their own death certificate. "Crystal."


	5. Shots Fired

"I've got nothing except what I told you," Lexa sighed, pouring them both glasses of white wine. There'd be no more arguing over the types of red. "I assume..."

"Yeah, neither do I."

Both of them sat opposite each other on the dining room table, their heads in their hands. They'd become stuck at a dead end—and she dreaded the day Anya requested a progress report, and they showed up with nothing except longshot theories about Cage's manufacturing of RED in plain sight, and the fact that Lorelei Tsing liked Turkish coffee and could cook a Talbot fish.

"We should talk more, you and I," Clarke said quietly. She didn't dare reach out for Lexa's hand—but something about Lexa's heady perfume made her pulse rate skyrocket, and she didn't want to ignore it. "We're playing games and covers when we're out there, but when we're in here, it's safe."

"I don't know what we could talk about," Lexa admitted. "We just _tried_."

"Something simple. Your parents. Facts."

Lexa stared at her, finishing off her glass of wine before hastily pouring herself another. Clarke minded her alcohol intake, wanting to stop Lexa from making any rash, drunken decisions—and it only made her feel _slightly_ shitty, the fact that Lexa had to be inebriated to be able to talk to her.

"You had to hit me," Lexa said hoarsely, staring into her glass of wine. Clarke shifted uncomfortably in her seat. That hadn't been where she'd been trying to steer the conversation—but she knew at some point they had to discuss this. "What I said to you..."

"You would've said to anyone involved in the case," Clarke said bitterly.

"It's just a homicide to me," Lexa said. She swallowed hard. "I...I almost wish it wasn't. I wish I knew Wells. I wish I cared. But part of _our_ case is finding his killer, and if I had to ask you—"

"You were doing your job."

"I hurt you."

"I hurt you." Clarke pinched the bridge of her nose. " _Fuck_ , Lexa, I _hit_ you."

"I'm not saying I deserved it. I'm saying that you're human. What I did—it was an interrogation. As I am going to have to gradually interrogate every single person Wells Jaha was affiliated with in some way. Indra is gonna kick the shit out of me the next time she sees me. The thing is, you and Wells were best friends. And I didn't so much as piss on his memory as I shat on it."

"That's not what you did."

"It _is_. It's why you hit me. I wanted to hit you back. And then I remembered the pain."

Clarke didn't need Lexa to elaborate further. _Costia Ford_ was all that needed saying.

They _did_ talk, though.

Lexa's parents were similar to Beaumont's, except they weren't as rich. Her father served in the military and her mother was a proud solicitor. Both parents worked full-time, and though Lexa was an only child, she did not find loneliness as much of a scar as it was just a memory she wished she could change. If she could've changed the amount of time she had with her father before he died, and the same with her mother, then maybe things would've ended differently between them.

It didn't scream " _tragic bullshit childhood story_ " more than it did " _necessarily boring but a bit gloomy childhood story_ ", in Lexa's opinion. Children lost their parents all the time. It was sad, but not something to be glorified for the sake of whining, longing pity.

Clarke's was a little simpler. Due to her mother's job, she was used to medical jargon and had a good knowledge of anatomy. Her dad, Jake, had died when she was still very young—and she missed him every day. All Lexa knew was that he inspired her to draw, and to wear a simple necklace at all times, with a tiny star dangling from its dinky chain. Apart from that, it was Abby Griffin's favour with Anya and Indra that sped up Clarke's police application. She'd come fresh from college and walked straight into a Detective job. That kind of shit didn't _happen_ anymore.

"Let me get this straight." Lexa was laughing now, her cheeks a little pink from the wine. "You got this job because your mom works in the medical department?"

" _And_ I'm quick, reflexive, and adaptable," Clarke snapped defensively, ignoring Lexa's derisive scoff. "What? You saw how quick I jumped you in Tsing and Wallace's sink."

Lexa's pink colour was starting to turn purple in embarrassment and she took a long gulp of her wine. She shakily poured herself yet another glass. Clarke kept a wary eye on her; she was still on her first. "I've been a cop all the way," she said flatly. "When your dad's a military man and your mom's a shit-hot lawyer, you gotta stay on the right side of the law. When your dad and your mom don't have time for you, you grow into a new skin that says " _I don't give a fuck_ ". Moved up the ranks pretty quickly, and was hastily given my first undercover operation a few years ago. Had a couple more, and then one major one, and—and we fucked up, and—"

"What happened?" Clarke tried not to pry, but covered Lexa's cold hand in hers, warming her up and also offering some sort of comfort. She'd heard all sorts of horror stories from Anya, Indra and her mother about the effects on policemen and policewomen and detectives rehabilitating into real-life after spending months or even years undercover.

"I—I had—you know she was called Costia." Lexa sunk in her seat, washing back the last of the wine. Dizzily, she reached for the bottle, but Clarke decided to pour herself the rest, apologising silently. "It was narcotics. We worked there. She was my partner. But the thing with narcotics is that it fucks you up, whether you want it or not. Costia was _fucked_. We got her clean so many times. I held her head back when she vommed; I cleaned her up when she shat herself; I let myself take every beating she gave me whenever we made her withdraw. She nearly fucking hospitalised me. It wasn't her. Then one day—one day I just find her in the showers of precinct." Lexa swallowed. "She'd been clean but she'd OD'd. Relapsed. Didn't expect the tolerance drop. The last I saw of her, she had the needle still stuck in her arm, her legs sprawled out, foam coming out of her mouth as the ambulance wheeled me away, and my Sergeant pulled me away, screaming. I never visited her. There was nothing to visit.

"I was gonna quit. I'd had enough of this undercover shit. Pretending to be someone I wasn't. Pretending to make a show out of loving Costia when really...I _did_. I loved her more than anything else and I lost her because of it. So I was gonna fuck the police and never come back again."

"Then why did you?" Clarke took a more challenging tone this time. She didn't like seeing Lexa on the back-foot; her eyes were brimming with tears she stubbornly refused to shed. She missed the version of Lexa who was confident and sometimes insulting, but always with the best intentions. "Why did you come back?"

"Because a while ago, Anya and Indra did me a favour. I'd give them my life," Lexa said firmly, bowing her head. Clarke didn't have it in her to ask. "They explained the case to me. They never made me say yes or no. But when I saw the opportunity to bring down some drug-selling piece of scum, I didn't even need the 'no' option."

"Drugs are always gonna be a problem in DC," Clarke said darkly. "If you wanna become some sort of anti-drug superhero, be my guest. But stopping Cage Wallace and Dr. Tsing won't eradicate the drug problem here."

"Get rid of RED, back comes the coke, the H, meth...I know." Lexa shook her head, resting her elbows on her knees. "I have a second house. It's not much."

"Y-you do?"

"It's in a shitty area and it's fucking cheap," Lexa said. "I invested in it. Why the fuck not? I could've bought a Lambo or founded a small charity. It's an idiot's choice, not a hero's choice. Everything in there—equipment-wise—is sterile. I've got a couple people who can see if it's shit in the bag or not, but at least if a junkie can't help themselves, they can do it somewhere where a hired team can check their status." Lexa paused, contemplative. "Call an ambulance if they have to. I called it too late for Costia."

"That could never have been your fault. How could you have anticipated that, huh?"

"Somehow. _Somehow_. I knew her and she knew me. I should've seen it."

"If you don't ever forgive yourself, Lexa, how the fuck are you gonna move on?"

Lexa fixed her with a glare. "Who the fuck said anything about moving on?"

Clarke opened and closed her mouth like a fish, utterly helpless. _Since you kissed me back in Tsing's bathroom; since you kissed me back when I kissed you goodnight; since_ you _kissed_ me _goodnight..._

She could tell Lexa was thinking the same—until suddenly, their eardrums nearly burst. The sound of glass shattering was enough for Lexa to knock Clarke to the ground, face-down on the floor. Lexa swore under her breath as Clarke checked in with Raven, who seemed to be alone in the van tonight. _Great. No back-up from Bellamy or Octavia_. She considered using the SAT phone, but that was on the other side of the room—and whoever the sniper was, it did not seem as if they were relenting any time soon.

There was pounding on the door, shouts of " _I'm calling an ambulance_!" filtering through the thick barrier. Someone was trying to ram their way inside with no luck—the door was impossible. But as Clarke ducked, she felt her heart lift as she realised they weren't going to be left to die. Access to the door was too much of a risk, but she yelled her thanks anyway as Lexa clambered off her, her body still shielding Clarke's from the bullets.

"No cops!" Lexa roared, swearing as another round of bullets was unleashed upon them.

"It's on its way! The ambulance!" someone outside hollered, a male voice. "The fuck do you mean, _no cops_? I can hear shootin'—"

"I meant _no cops_!" Lexa yelled back, and she gripped her arm around Clarke's waist, yanking her behind the sofa. The bullets rained against the massive windows, smashing every of its last bits.

The man outside seemed to relent. "Just the ambulance! Hey—is it Jackson?"

"That's me," Clarke called hesitantly. _This is not the ideal time for a conversation, Man Who Called the Ambulance_. "Um—"

"You hang on!" the man shouted, trying to be reassuring. He did not know there were two well-trained undercover detectives inside. "They'll be here soon."

The phone in the corridor rang, and amidst the blasts of bullets, Lexa signalled for Clarke to receive the call. She'd be out of harm's way, and Lexa had to get a closer look at the sniper. The way the sniper seemed to be showering them with bullets, it was a suicide mission. Then, for a moment, there was reprieve. Clarke slammed the loudspeaker button as she practically bowled into the table with the phone on top.

"I know who you are." The voice was distorted, like the person was using some sort of voice-hiding app. "I know who you both are. If you don't get out of the way, things are really gonna get messed up."

"Seeing we're clearly both about to die," Clarke said, charmingly, "why don't you honour us with your name?"

No bullets sounded like complete, eerie silence. They couldn't even hear the desperate hammering on the door. Lexa blinked hard, her heart slamming into her ribcage. This was real fear. She wasn't scared she'd die. She was scared Clarke would get caught in the crossfire and she'd have to watch.

"Withdraw from the investigation." The voice was not fucking around. "Make it official."

Clarke held Lexa's gaze. "No."

"You will both end up dead."

"We'll end up dead whether we agree to your terms tonight or not."

"I really don't wanna have to kill you two."

There was a red-dot suddenly fixed on the sofa. Lexa, back against the firm back of the sofa, stilled in horror. The broken shards of glass Lexa had accidentally pierced her forearms with was nothing compared to the painful pounding of her heart as she watched Clarke hold her hands up, her expression horrified. The red dot wavered, and Lexa leant her head back, sweat glistening off her chest, her neck, her face; she'd lost so much blood it was smeared all over the floor.

"Stay calm," Lexa whispered.

"Stay calm?" Clarke whispered back, furiously. "There's a fucking sniper shot—"

"I know. Just—don't look at me. Look out of the window. Tell me what you see."

"The balcony," Clarke said, her voice trembling. "Ours is wrecked. Tsing and Wallace's is fine. Their curtains are drawn."

"Nobody opened their blinds at the noise?"

"No."

"Okay. Are you still on the phone?"

"Yeah." Clarke side-eyed the phone, with its receiver end placed face-down on the table.

"Pick it up. Tell 'em we want terms. We get out of this alive, and we don't breathe a word to the police."

"But—"

"Clarke."

With a heavy swallow, Clarke picked up the phone—but the dial-tone had clicked dead. Desperately, she slammed the damn device for the last number to be traced—but it was unknown and likely a burner phone.

Then the red dot vanished.

Quick as a bullet, ironically, Clarke rushed over to where Lexa crouched, and then moved to the other side of the sofa, whilst Lexa remained on the left.

A hailstorm of bullets wrecked the glass yet again, spraying all over the living room space. Both women covered their faces by curling up into the foetal position. Lexa's eyes were fixed on Clarke and Clarke only—the woman was drenched in blood. She'd slipped up, trying to sneak off to a safe spot—and had ended up tripping over one of the shards of glass. The cuts on the soles of her feet followed her as she scrambled towards the kitchen, with the intent of hiding behind the bench—but the sniper had her plan already. The sniper fired off a series of warning shots, smashing glasses and dishes all around them.

"You quit this!" Lexa bellowed, as closely to the balcony as she dared. She had one hand on her phone, desperately calling Indra—she hoped that whatever she could overhear, they'd realise how serious this situation was.

Scrappily, she crawled over to where Clarke was. It was the easiest way. Standing up made her an instant target. Crawling cut her knees, her legs, her forearms and her hands—but it was efficient. By the time she made it to Clarke, surrounded by the broken bits that used to be their kitchen, her eyes were drooping with loss of blood.

Horrified, Clarke's eyes trailed over Lexa's path, their floor stained with blood. Lexa's blood.

Oh, _shit_.

"Hey," Clarke said urgently, yanking Lexa's hand from her pocket. Indra. _Fuck. Thank fuck._ Lexa had done the impossible when it _had_ been, and she kissed Lexa's bloody hand. Lexa's head lolled back, fading in and out of consciousness. "Lexa Woods, I'm not letting you die of _blood loss_. I hope you know that's a fucking lame-ass way to go."

"You okay, blondie?" Lexa near-drawled, resting her head against the bench. Clarke gave her a reluctant half-smile, her palm resting against Lexa's blood-smeared cheek. "I—I had to see—"

"You stay with me," Clarke instructed her. "Just talk to me. Look at me."

"Woods?" Indra's voice was fuzzy on the other end of Lexa's phone, and Clarke, heaving a sigh of relief, put it on loudspeaker. Lexa's hands were drenched in her own blood. "Woods?"

"Griffin," Clarke said into the phone. "Sarge, we're—we're—"

"I know." Indra didn't sound like she was messing about. "The ambulance will be with you in two minutes. Reyes' back-up van is ready and armed. How many shooters?"

"Just the one, I think."

"Any chance of taking them out?"

Clarke craned her neck, as far as she could without being shot. The angle was impossible. The sniper had been able to scare them off with shots to the window and wrecking as much as possible, but they weren't able to secure any shots to the body. "I don't think so."

"Don't worry. Just stay where you are."

Lexa's exhausted brain tried to patch the situation in her mind. Bellamy, Raven and Octavia were supposed to be on-guard. She _knew_ Octavia's rocket-launcher was stored inside that van of Raven's. Where had their back-up been, like, twenty minutes ago? Where the fuck was the rocket launcher? Was it a case of _Octavia_ ratting them out, or was it a trio effort?

The shots continued through the window, but they'd dulled themselves into a background fuzz. Clarke held Lexa's face in both of her hands, as Lexa's eyes flickered shut, her head drooping slightly.

"Wells wouldn't want you to die doing this," Lexa said, half-consciously.

"And what, Lexa? You think you should? Because you want revenge for Costia's descent into being a class-A junkie?"

"Yeah. Yeah I fucking do."

"Then we're both shit for this." Clarke realised this in tears, kneeling before Lexa. Lexa didn't register her mostly, her head lolling back and forth. Clarke was scared that if the Blakes didn't burst through those doors within the next thirty seconds, Lexa would be the next to go. "We're driven by emotion. I want revenge. You want revenge."

"It is not emotion; not heart. It is a plan thought—with the head."

"Bull-fucking- _shit_."

"Clarke..."

"I'm here. I'm here."

Lexa smiled. The blood pooling beneath her was surely a pint, and Clarke tried not to look at it. She didn't want Lexa to fret. She just wanted to Lexa to stay still, and keep smiling at her like that. "Stay with me."

"That's what I'm doing, nuts-for-brains." Clarke held Lexa's face still, leaning forwards to kiss her gently on the mouth. Lexa could do with it what she wanted. She could pretend it was Costia. She could pretend she never remembered. But Lexa, unmoving at first, responded ever so tenderly, her bloodied hand gripping the bottom of Clarke's top.

 

* * *

 

As soon as the words " _she's in critical condition, but stable_ "—classic words from something like Grey's Anatomy—came from the nurse's mouth, Clarke's eyes snapped open. She'd downed about five cups of coffee now, and was quickly becoming a familiar face by the toilets. Lexa's space in the acute ward had been immediately ushered through with sensitive knowledge—shared only with a few of the key staff involved—that they were actually with the police. Clarke was unabashedly aware of the risk that this now put Lexa in, considering she was _critical_ , but it was the only way through the hours-long queue. She just had to trust in the goodness of a hospital and its staff. And so she had.

Maybe it was naive. But fuck it. This was Lexa's life on the line, and if Clarke was going to slither into her newfound identity, maybe she would do some good by shedding the constant paranoia that seemed to shroud her life.

Lexa was a sight for sore eyes, but not a pleasant one. She was fast asleep, with a cannula up her arm, tied to a steady infusion of morphine sulphate. Her injuries were mainly covered by her light clothing and the bedsheet, but her face had been marred and scratched, the worst of the scars stitched up, some of them covered by light adhesive dressings. She basically looked halfway to mummification.

It unsettled Clarke. A lot.

But she waited. _As a dedicated girlfriend would do,_ she made herself think. She couldn't contact anyone from the precinct: it was too risky to leave Lexa's side, and it was even riskier to try and make a call in public, speaking about a hit on two undercover cops. If Tsing and Wallace didn't know for sure by now, then—knowing them and their riches—mild overhearing would turn into a gossip vortex and tornado through their fancy balcony.

Still: Clarke had to find out who the sniper was. It _had_ to be someone from within the precinct—and it had to be _exactly_ the same person who'd ratted Wells out. Who else would be so invested in the case? And _why_?

She had to think of who was attached to both cases—and the names she came up with weren't pleasant. All of them were her close friends, and if it wasn't them, then it was possibly, _possibly_ , even worse—because then it would be some random external source, and how the _fuck_ were they supposed to trace that?

Clarke supposed they could use Raven's genius—but what if _Raven_ was the rat? They'd been using a voice distortion app...but then again, anyone could download that onto their phone. The sniper's use of mild tech didn't isolate them from the rest of the crowd. Clarke was sure if she looked into her App Store, she'd find the same app.

The thought made her feel nauseous. Of course she didn't want it to be Raven. Though if it wasn't Raven, who was an IT genius, then it meant someone incredibly ordinary with technology could infiltrate through a relatively tight ship. She was _sure_ she hadn't given her and Lexa away. Lexa was even more stoic; she was less likely of the two to slip up, for _sure_.

It haunted Clarke's sleep as she stayed slumped in the armchair by Lexa's bed, dipping in and out of dreams and nightmares as night bled into day, and the sun streamed through the windows. Clarke felt as if she hadn't slept a wink by the time Lexa grunted her way into consciousness, and Clarke rubbed her eyes.

" _Shit_." She almost knocked over Lexa's jug of water on the bedside table as her arm jerked out to stretch. Her eyes darted over to Lexa's. "Hey—can—are you okay?"

"Uh." Lexa couldn't seem to form words, but she lifted a shaky finger and motioned for Clarke to lean in. "Hi."

"I'm here." Clarke leant in, and Lexa motioned again, raising an eyebrow. Clarke frowned, and twisted around in her seat. She kept her voice low. "Shall I draw the curtains?"

Lexa shook her head. "No." She motioned again. _Closer_.

"Liz?" Clarke tested the waters.

Lexa closed her eyes gratefully and nodded, and Clarke nodded back. _Message understood_. This time, when Lexa motioned for her to get closer, Clarke noisily drew her chair as close to the bed as possible and placed a lingering kiss onto Lexa's forehead.

"A mole," Clarke whispered as she did so, "in the precinct. Same one that got Wells killed. Has to be."

"Eliminate." One thing Lexa hadn't been feigning was her incapacity to hold much of a conversation. Her eyes said it all, so Clarke found herself trying to read them a little better. "One out of five. Is. Bent."

"One out of five of our closest allies." Clarke squeezed her eyes shut and knocked foreheads against Lexa's, who seemed to encourage the closeness. It was the only way they could seem like a loving couple to the public whilst speak in confidence. She supposed Lexa thought drawing the curtain would seem like drawing the one on their balcony: hiding from the world...like they had anything to hide. And the only way they could hide was to _not_ hide, and live in plain sight.

Scattered among a world of people who held secrets, Clarke and Lexa were not the only ones. They just had a much scarier, life-threatening secret than some yoga guru who was banging her boyfriend's best mate. "That's like having five babies and putting all of 'em on the firing line."

"Don't have five babies then," Lexa provided unhelpfully.

Despite the stupidity, and despite the situation—Clarke found her snort bubbling into a laugh. Lexa could only smile meekly back up at her, and Clarke, slipping far too easily into her cover, she found, snuck an arm under the covers and covered Lexa's abdomen.

She could feel the bumps and the scar tissue over Lexa's thin hospital gown. "Is this okay?" she asked quietly.

"Closer."

"Any closer and I'll literally be on top of you, Le—Liz."

She did it anyway, hovering over Lexa like an uneasy bee. It was a hugely uncomfortable situation for her thighs, which felt like they were burning under the weight of keeping herself up—but she wasn't going to dump her body weight on a heavily injured Lexa. She assumed the well-reputed detective would make a stubbornly speedy recovery regardless, but she was not a burden Lexa needed to assume right now. So she leant in, making sure only her head hovered near Lexa's—not any other body part.

"Your friend." Lexa didn't need to speak in code: they were in confidence. But cautious as ever, that's what she did. "He got too close. We can't afford that."

"We _have_ to. How else will we get in?"

"We will talk—about what he did—then—we will—we will avoid it. That path."

"We're already on a different one."

Lexa cranked her head up to face Clarke, eyes fully fixated on her. She didn't look tired or doped up, even with the morphine infusion cranking into her veins. Clarke decided even _she_ could do with an IV drip of that shit at some point. "I'm _not_ ," she whispered, "letting you get in that position again."

"There's shit-all you can do in that hospital bed of yours."

"I'll make sure I do shit-all, then."

"Lexa, you can't protect me from something you know nothing about."

"I know I can ensure your safety. You need to let me."

" _Lexa_."

Lexa closed her eyes, clenching her jaw as her body trembled. It was so _frustrating_ , not being able to do anything. Her mobility had been mowed down, effectively. The doctors had told her she'd recover soon with no permanent injuries—it was only the sheer amount of blood loss that affected her consciousness and mental ability as blood struggled to the brain.

"Clarke," she said, more automatically than intentionally.

"Yeah?"

"You kissed me. On the balcony."

"The kiss of life," Clarke joked, awkwardly scratching her neck. "It's okay. I know what it was. You can pretend it was Costia. I just—I thought you were gonna _die_. And—" She thought back to Wells, and how desperately she'd told him loving lies in his ear as he begged for her not to avenge him, "I didn't want you to die alone."

Lexa nodded slowly, her gaze flickering to meet Clarke's. "I didn't think of Costia."

"Okay." Clarke's gut clenched. Lexa's hand inched forwards on the bed, and Clarke immediately covered it with her own. Their fingers interlocked, and Lexa squeezed tightly. "Okay."

They stayed like that for a while, half-heartedly arguing in tired whispers and murmurs but not really committing their heart to their words. All Clarke could think about was Lexa, diving across shards of glass in order to be by her side. Lexa, drained from the blood in her body because all she wanted was to ensure Clarke's safety. She was speaking now of the identity of the sniper and the minimal clues he or she had given away in their tiny exchange. _They didn't want to hurt us_ , she thought she'd heard Lexa say, but as she watched Lexa half-mummified in the hospital bed, she found herself at crossroads trying to believe it. The incident had not been filed properly and neither woman had been debriefed. Anya and Indra had retained their respective distances but they knew it was only a matter of time before both women came down on them, hard, with questions they could not answer.

They were already on the path to failure. Distraction had cost them the chance to bug Tsing and Wallace's apartment—now the van could not listen into Tsing and Wallace's behind-closed-doors reaction to the shooting on Clarke and Lexa's apartment.

Now the instant Lexa had unofficially assumed position as the tracer of whoever the traitor was within the precinct, she'd been gravely injured. It wasn't a job to be left half-done. Lexa was the trash who had supposed to have been taken out—and if she did not die, then that information didn't, either. She had to go—but at whose disposal?

Lexa wondered how daring she'd be, how close she'd toe the line, if it meant digging up the truth.

She could see the wooden board in her head, with everyone's mugshots awaiting her. Wells Jaha had been killed. The money was likely being sourced from Theolonious Jaha—which raised the first question of if he was twisted enough to sacrifice his own son for the sake of grappling with DC's drug problem and profiteering? The second was means of distribution. Cage Wallace had an army at his disposal but they had never been traced; no illegal transactions had been made save for a suspicious tumbled amount of money. From the job that had gotten Wells killed to the botched assassination attempt that had almost offed Clarke and Lexa, the only ones privy to the investigation were Anya, Indra, Raven, Bellamy and Octavia.

She mentally placed 'RAVEN' over the queen figure on the chess board. She was the one with the tech. Any digital footprint would be wiped by her all-access; money transfers done to a standard like that would be her forte, too. Everything screamed technology, yet the thought of Raven wielding a sniper rifle in the middle of the night nearly made her laugh. But she could've had a hired gun.

The doors slammed open and Cage Wallace with Dr. Tsing on his arm strode into the room, his hair windswept. His face was etched in worry as he stormed over towards Lexa's bed.

"Elizabeth," he said breathlessly, loosening his tie. He looked as if he'd just been in work. "Are you alright? We heard what had happened."

"Some lunatic," Lexa waved off meekly. Clarke held her hand silently. "I don't know."

"We'll bring the police in—"

"No," Clarke cut in firmly. "We'll handle it ourselves. Liz is...healing like a charm. We'll have her back in no time. Just—I've just been carrying on my routine. I find it helps."

"What about Manor Gardens?" _Of course that's what he was worried about._ "D'you think it's safe?"

"My uncle wasn't short of enemies," Lexa fabricated on-the-spot, shrugging weakly. "He was a military man. Close to me as my dad was. I think he had his fare share of scuffles."

"I was scared _shitless_ ," Clarke confessed, ignoring Tsing's overly sympathetic nod. She wasn't sure what made her do it. _It's for show. That's all_. She bent down and kissed Lexa full on the lips, firm and teasing and beckoning, waiting for permission as Lexa tentatively slipped her tongue in hers, breathing heavily in Clarke's mouth. Lexa winced as she kissed, the pain in her abdomen fiery, and Cage and Tsing could only look away as Elizabeth Beaumont and Jackson Smith embraced life, and the luckiness that had befallen them. And as for Lexa and Clarke, they simply embraced the lack of luck the sniper had on the roof that night, as they deepened the kiss—and reminded themselves it was just for show.

Once they bust Wallace's drug business, they'd ditch the covers, return to normal—

And this was just for show.


	6. In Plain Sight

Lexa recovered quickly, with the help of an excellent care team, steady rehabilitation getting her back to her feet, and sheer stubbornness. Clarke knew that the latter made up about 75% of the success. Lexa's scars healed, though they left unpleasant, raised marks all over her body, along her forearm, and a giant slice across her cheek. It looked as if someone had knifed her—and then some. Clarke knew she was self-conscious of it, because every time she visited, Lexa was staring in the mirror at her facial scar, her grimace evident. Clarke wasn't sure if it was disgust, or if it was just annoyance. Lexa would have the scar forever. It was too raised, the bump—no amount of foundation or cover-up would be able to hide the scar at all.

Battle scars used to look cool, Clarke had thought as a child. Scars were something that made people sexy. It made men sexy. It made women sexy. But as Lexa stared at her reflection in the mirror, she couldn't help but think that chicks definitely did not dig this. It was garish, ugly and a mar on her angular face and smooth skin.

She clenched the bedsheets in restrained anger, clenching her teeth. None of this would've happened without the fucking rat in their ranks—but could they even tell who it was? Did anyone have any idea? Was there even an internal investigation going on, headed up by Anya and aided by Indra? Or was this it? Was _this_ the investigation? Some trap to lure the traitor out into the open by betraying Lexa and Clarke, at the cost of their lives?

In a sick way, Lexa understood. If she had to die in order to reveal the identity of the mole, she would save countless other lives undercover. If that was her legacy, and her fate, then so be it. But as she remained in the hospital bed, all police visitors banned for the sake of raising suspicion since Cage and Tsing's visit the other day, it was only Clarke she was allowed to see.

Any other time, she was alone. And every time she was alone, she was left to her thoughts.

She had never liked her thoughts. Too dark. Too grim. Too dramatic.

Mostly, she was restless. She felt useless, as if she couldn't do anything to help the operation at all. Even seated and with a bum leg, Raven was the resident tech whiz. She wondered how Clarke was faring on the field without her. She resented the Blakes for their carefree way of soldiering, because they were the ones who blew stuff up, provided gunshot covers and all sorts. They had no responsibility of being on the field. They just had to make stuff go _boom_.

By the time Lexa had recovered, still a little sore where her stitches were, it was Bellamy driving the ambulance side-by-side with Octavia, debriefed by Raven and Clarke in the back. It had been a completely consensual, legal 'hijack' of an ambulance van, and Bellamy decided to put on the siren just for shits. The noise irritated Lexa's head, but she said nothing. Instead, strapped to the stretcher, she called for them to pull over and gather in the back. Bellamy did as he was told, and the Blakes opened the door to clamber in; Lexa welcomed the crisp breeze.

She reported the situation to them, bluntly and devoid of emotion. Just facts.

_There's five of them here, including Clarke. Whatever I say is in confidence with these five._

She just hoped that these were the _right_ five. "Someone was on the phone," Lexa said shakily, confirming Clarke's previous story. "Someone had used a distortion app for the voice. They'd said that they knew our identities. I don't know if it's too risky going back in as if nothing happened."

"Thing is, if they knew, I'd be dead already," Clarke said bluntly, and Lexa flinched at the way she said it. She didn't want to think about Clarke's dead body. _No_. She'd promised she would not let that happen. Ever.

Lexa examined everyone's reactions at the news: it was the same across the board. Muted horror and mild relief that they seemed to be okay. Bellamy was rumpling a hand through his hair, clearly distressed by the news. Octavia reacted regretfully, wishing she'd been armed to take out the sniper—except her rocket launcher, it appeared upon questioning, had mysteriously disappeared days ago. Raven had waved it off, accusing Octavia of misplacing it, which led Lexa to Raven; she whispered a faint " _praise Jesus_ " under her breath, but still joked about Lexa looking good even if she had nearly died.

Lexa couldn't make heads or tails out of it.

They had to find out who had taken Octavia's rocket launcher. And everyone seemed horribly... _themselves_. There was no guilt clogging up the air. No sweaty foreheads or jiggling knees. If the rat was even in this van, they were worthy of a fucking Oscar. If not, Lexa hated the idea of having to question DCI Anya Smithson of all people.

Clarke went on: "If they knew, they wouldn't have visited us at the hospital and made such a public scene about it. They would've paid off the staff for the night, used a silencer on me and then killed an immobile, bedridden Lexa. Whoever knows, they're external. Outside of Cage and Tsing. Our covers are safe with them, but until we find out who set us up that night, we can't be sure."

"We can't be sure that person won't top Cage and Tsing off, either," Lexa said. "What if they're just playing nice?"

"They'll need audio _and_ video proof. I dunno, I think we've been quite careful. Ish. We just need to avoid cameras and we need to trust our team."

Clarke gave an encouraging speech and clapped Octavia and Bellamy on the shoulder, hugging them both. It wasn't long before they were on the road again, with Bellamy driving.

Lexa's gut stirred. "We need to kill the sniper."

"Woah—slow down, soldier," Raven laughed hastily, and Lexa snapped her head towards her. Her suspicions hadn't died down—and she wasn't sure if Raven was aware of how much of a target she was making herself. "You can't just kill on a whim."

"And if it was a pretty good hunch?"

Raven shrugged. "It's still a hunch. Try justifying that to a review panel. You need evidence."

"So?" Lexa challenged. "Are you gonna help me get it?"

"I'll try."

"Won't spoof anything?"

"What's what supposed to mean?"

Lexa had been scraped and scratched and bloodied to the near-end of her life, and she was strapped to this back stretcher in their make-do ambulance. She was completely invalid, compared to Raven, who was towering over her as she crouched so her head wouldn't hit the roof of the ambulance vehicle. Her head cricked to the side a little, where she could see Clarke. She knew what Clarke was thinking. She'd already _asked_ Clarke, to a response of a slap. "Seems like the rat in the precinct's got a pretty good idea of how to hide their identity."

"It's not hard," Raven said lowly, carefully, "hiding your voice behind an App."

"No. Especially not for you, right?"

Clarke shot forwards as Raven lunged for her, her eyes wide in fury as an immobile Lexa held her gaze, lack of fear in her eyes. So Raven Reyes was capable of lashing out at someone who couldn't fight back. It was the first sign of a coward. Clarke forced her back, shoving her violently against the ECG monitor and nearly knocking it over. The Blakes swerved on the road, with Octavia poking her head in the back.

"Everything okay?" she yelled as Bellamy revved the engine, honking at some idiot who'd nearly taken them _all_ , frowning at the scene before her.

"Peachy," Clarke said, strained. "Drive."

Octavia did as she was told, as Raven struggled against her hold. It _was_ tempting to resort to violence—Clarke knew it first-hand—when Lexa played those kind of games with your mind. But she had to remind Raven it was just that: a game. Lexa was rooting out who was a traitor and who wasn't. If she'd truly suspected Raven Clarke imagined it would've been a lot worse, and she would've waited until she was fully fit to take Raven on in a fight.

"When Wells died, it wasn't just Clarke who lost a friend that night." Raven's voice shook. She knew Wells and Clarke had been closer, but Wells had been popular with _everyone_. "Everyone in this van can say they were friends with Wells. So you shut the fuck up, because you weren't even _here_."

"I don't know the boy, and guess what? I'm not the one who sold him out," Lexa retorted. She unclasped herself and sat up gingerly, glaring at Raven. "Someone in this van sold him out."

Raven's jaw nearly fell open. "You think it's _me_?"

The Blakes were at the front, merrily singing along to whatever came onto the radio. For some reason, Lexa had kept her voice down. Clarke had almost expected her to pull a pedestal from nowhere and make an announcement of " _hey, I know one of you is a traitor, and I'm gonna find you_!" but she was going about it in a much, much subtler manner. She wasn't making any sweeping statements to scare the suspect off at first sight. Lexa had been cleverer. She'd intended to pick them off one-by-one, Clarke realised. Only Clarke had been present when Lexa had asked her. Only Raven could hear it when Lexa accused her.

It would be Octavia and Bellamy next, and if Raven was telling the truth, then it was one of those two. Clarke closed her eyes, internally refusing to believe the thought.

And what of Indra? Anya? The thought of a senior officer betraying them was even _worse_ , but they weren't within Clarke's friendship circle. If someone like Theolonious Jaha was widely known to be corrupt, then was the Detective Chief Inspector immune? Was the Sarge? The obvious answer was no—and because Lexa wasn't an idiot—Clarke knew she'd already thought of it.

"It wasn't me," Raven insisted, a little helplessly. "I know that won't make much difference but when you come to the truth, you remember I told you I didn't do it."

"You know I can't just take anyone's word for it."

"I know." Raven chewed on her bottom lip. "This is fucked, isn't it?"

"You don't say."

Not another word was exchanged at the back, and Clarke and Raven allowed for Lexa to nod off. Clarke was acutely aware of the fact that Lexa had left Anya and Indra out of this on purpose. Her goal had been to narrow down the van—and if it wasn't, then it had to be one of the two senior officers. She thought perhaps in her heart she didn't want it to be, but she'd seen enough of Lexa to know that she was not a dirty cop. She was about as honest as they could come, full of integrity, and she was going to carry this investigation by-the-books.

"What happens when you're back?" Raven asked finally, as they parked two blocks away from Manor Gardens. Octavia had jumped out a few blocks ago to either cut the CCTV or turn them at an odd angle so Bellamy could park within range. In the darkness, the ambulance wasn't so obvious—but they couldn't linger for too long. It was getting more and more conspicuous the longer they spent.

"We'll take it bigger," Lexa said. "I'm gonna have to do some old-fashioned following."

"Sure Cage won't just shake you off his tail?"

"I don't think he's clever enough for that."

"You'd better count on that," Raven warned.

"I need to count on _you_ ," Lexa said, her eyes flicking over to the obvious Blakes at the front. They were in deep conversation about something, so she turned to Raven. Clarke leant in too. "Whatever I photograph, I'm sending them straight to you. Whatever I hear, I'm sending it straight to you."

"Whatever you _hear_?"

"I'm gonna clone Jaha's phone connection," Lexa muttered, ignoring Raven's low whistle. She was impressed. "It's the only way we'll get any indication if he's in contact with _any_ big drug distributors—not just Cage Wallace. We get ears in on their deal, and we save it so we have proof to take him down."

"And the deal itself?" Raven asked.

Clarke coughed, scratching the back of her neck. Lexa looked at her in surprise, her hooded eyes slowly adjusting to having Clarke _there_ for her again. "I've got that part handled. Don't worry."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I just need to borrow something from the precinct. You guys lost it, I believe."

 

* * *

 

Lexa had never really been to the belly of the beast. Clarke had been and described, in her usual blasé fashion, what Cage & Wallace Son was like. It was nothing like how Clarke had described it. Where Clarke had said "a few labs here and there" she really meant "thousands of labs dotted about like a university campus". Where Clarke said "it looks quite modern" she meant "everything looks like the film ' _The Hunger Games_ ' capital but, like, fifty times more modern and clean". Clarke had completely under-exaggerated _everything_ about Cage's workplace, and Lexa had to take a moment to just _marvel_ at the sheer size of Cage's research and development plant.

Somewhere, in this humungous, impossible building, they were synthesising RED. The chemical structure, Raven had said, was something similar to cocaine. It was not an anaesthetic but it was a potent dopamine agonist, whatever the fuck that meant—in layman's terms, it stimulated the reward system on a rerouting circuit, giving the user shocks and continuous waves of pleasure as it completely overwhelmed their senses. Then it disintegrated within the brain, leaving neurotoxic shards behind as the user desperately sought their next binge, trying in vain to recreate the magic of the first high—but that was the problem with drugs. You never really got quite as high as your first.

Lexa followed Cage to work only fifteen minutes after he left the house. He made sure Clarke had distracted Tsing—not all day—in Manor Gardens, whilst Lexa stepped comfortably into a pre-parked Volkswagen Polo on the side of the road and swiftly followed Cage's luxurious Rolls Royce.

She made sure to take a couple of detours on the way. She knew her Polo didn't exactly look like the kind of car to be parked outside a multimillion dollar company, so she parked a few blocks away and then made it on foot, carefully to evade the security cameras as she held Clarke's camera, strapped around her neck, to her chest.

Lexa wasn't even sure what she was going to achieve here. All she'd been able to do was ensure that because she'd cloned her phone with Cage's during his visit in the hospital, she'd been the only candidate to follow him. She wondered if Clarke still had nightmares about Wells, and decided that even if she was without the cloned phone, she would not have allowed for Clarke to take her position anyway.

With a heavy sigh, she settled behind a grassy knoll, setting up her high-res camera. It was immediately connected to the outreaching WiFi of Raven's van, and she could send pictures directly from the camera to her printer or her computer system. Lexa shook her head. Technology wasn't beyond her, but it was sure impressive.

"Are you okay?" Clarke asked over the comms, her voice a little crackly.

Lexa adjusted the lens. "Yep. Like I was three and a half minutes ago, Clarke."

"I can't help it. I'm worried."

"Just stay calm and stay focused. Nothing is going to happen. Okay?"

"Right. Because you're the all-seer of the future and you're some Goddess-like creature who knows everything."

Lexa didn't dignify it with an answer, to which Clarke scoffed anyway, cutting off the comms between them. In reality, she was lost for words. Theolonious Jaha had just stepped out of the building, shaking hands with Cage Wallace, enthusiastically. Sensing her opportunity, she snapped away from her vantage point, making sure she caught close-ups of their handshake, each of their faces, and the swap—a silver briefcase. She could see Jaha open the contents, and she snapped like mad. Thick wads of money lay inside.

 _Send. Send. Send. Send._ Agitatedly, she waited for Raven's text to signal she'd received them. None came, but she knew Raven had wired anything sent to her electronically straight onto the terabyte hard-drive plugged into the back-up van's desktop.

It was a start. For all she knew, Cage could've invested into the community with thousands of dollars worth of charity money, not blood money. But Wells Jaha had gotten killed by this very man's hand. She very much doubted that the money was clean, and she knew if _she_ came into contact with it, she would likely meet the same fate as Wells.

It still didn't answer a plethora of questions, though. Cage had proven himself a hard nut to crack, but what about his father? Shit—what about _Jaha_ himself? Lexa watched carefully as Jaha made his way across the gigantic car-park that was Wallace  & Son's, and pulled her balaclava down.

"Clarke," she said into the comms, regretfully.

"Yeah?"

"I'm gonna do something stupid. It won't kill me, but _you'll_ kill me. Is that okay?"

"No."

"Sorry."

"Lexa!"

Quick as a bullet, Lexa darted from car to car, making sure her back was flat against the surface. One eye was fixed on the car park cameras—sparse—above them, and the other made sure she cut a zigzag, quick path towards the Mayor of Arkadia. Then, knowing Clarke would likely beat her around the head later, she kicked Jaha's knees from behind so they buckled. He fell forward, and she pressed the silencer of her gun to the back of his head. "Don't move."

 

* * *

 

Lexa took him to a storage box facility, where she kept one of the keys and paid monthly for an empty space. In there were zipties, inches-thick rope, tape, surgical tools...the full lot. As they entered, Lexa shut down all camera facilities in the building and finally shoved Jaha into the box, slamming the door shut behind them. She had the only key.

Within minutes, his wrists were tied up at an angle from the ceiling, like some kind of sick wide pull-up. His legs dangled from the floor. Lexa knew how this worked. The pain would soon set into his joints. Sharp at first, and if he could overcome that, then the dull wear and tear of his ball and socket joint—occasionally pinching—would pry the answers from him.

"Anya always knew you were a fucking shady little prick," Lexa said distastefully. She didn't like using profanities so liberally, but she'd make an excuse for Jaha. "You had your own son killed."

"In war, there isn't a right or wrong side," Jaha said. He was haggard, from the day Lexa dragged him from place to place, refusing to let him drink. "There's a side that wins and a side that loses."

"You planning to be on the winning side?"

"I still am."

"Hm." Lexa laughed, muffling it behind her fist. "I could beat the shit out of you."

"But you won't," Jaha clocked on, "Why?"

Lexa considered this in silence and studied him in disgust. _This_ was the Mayor of Arkadia. She was also aware that everything she could hear from Jaha was currently being recorded by Raven and streamed directly to Anya, who'd also be recording it. They had to be extra tight when it came to the slippery Mayor—he'd escaped charges of extortion, sexual abuse, battery and much more. He was a dirty man but he was brutally honest. It was why the people had initially liked him, and it was how he'd been voted into power. Except Theolonious Jaha was a dick of a man, and people realised this too late.

"I oversaw your case with Costia Ford," Jaha said suddenly, and Lexa stiffened, glowering up at Jaha. She could hear Raven's silent pleas on the phone: _don't fall for it._ Except both Raven _and_ Octavia were being oddly silent on the comms, and she didn't like it. Something didn't feel right. "She was a promising Detective. It's a shame she had to go the way of a common, street-whore, desperate, lying, H-addicted junkie."

 _SMACK_. The ring on Lexa's hand caused Jaha's cheek to bleed, and he gazed steadily up at her, unfazed. Lexa, meanwhile, was panting, her chest heavy with exertion. _This is what he wants. He wants me to incriminate myself until I can't stop myself and he'll go Scot-free and I'll go to jail..._

But oh, how _worth_ it would be if she could just...

"That was the past," Lexa said. "I did what I could. In the end, I failed her."

"Ford—"

"Cut the bullshit, Jaha," Lexa snapped. "I want distribution routes. I want the location of your factory. It's not in Cage Wallace's R&D building. Give me the address of a warehouse, and give me some routes for the day."

"You think I will betray my people that easily? There are hundreds of us, manifested within the police force and above. In plain sight, we will destroy your crusade, Detective."

"Then we'll just have to find all of you and kick your ass, won't we?"

"Try me. Torture me, do what you like."

Lexa grinned humourlessly at him, unsheathing her switchblade. Jaha's eyes widened at the sight of it and struggled against his bonds as Lexa advanced forward. "No-one's gonna hear you in here." She'd picked the ideal spot for this, and she tried not to take too much pleasure in the way he screamed in pain as she cut a vertical line down his forearm with her blade.

"Spill."

 

* * *

 

"Got it?"

Lexa Woods poured a bottle over her blood-drenched hands, rubbing them clean with some paper towels. The Mayor of Arkadia faded in and out of consciousness, bleeding—superficially, but in sufficient pain. "Got it."

 

* * *

 

Lexa left Jaha strung up in her storage box, despite his hoarse protests. The man's shirt was cut and bloodied, and she was sure he would lose consciousness within minutes. Soon, the staff would find him and call the ambulance—but she didn't care anymore. The head of corruption within the police force had been made a pathetic example of. She thought of the people who would still follow a creature like him, and pitied them, because they were the true definition of pathetic.

She left her camera, too. The camera stayed in one place, and the SD card was locked up in one of her drawers in the safety box. In the off-chance nothing made it back to the van, at least she had the originals, where to retrieve them, and the key, which she slipped inside of her bra.

"Did you get that?" Lexa demanded, pressing her comms. Raven and Octavia had offered radio silence all afternoon. "Hello?"

"It's me." Bellamy's voice drifted over and Lexa relaxed, exhaling deeply. "I've got the van just around the corner from the storage block. C'mon. Let's give you a ride."

"Thanks, Blake."

She trudged over towards the familiar unmarked van now, and yanked the double-doors of the back open, tired eyes barely registering the sight before her. The computers weren't even on, and in the corner of the van—right at the back—Octavia was slumped over Raven, unconscious. Lexa froze, stumbling backwards in shock as Bellamy shot forwards, yanking her up into the van and punching her, hard, across the face.

Lexa sprawled across the floor of the van, groaning in pain as Bellamy bent down and smacked her again, making sure she stayed down. "You should've taken my offer of boxing," he hissed down at her, wrenching the gun from her belt and placing it in his own. "Where the fuck is Jaha?"

"You were the sniper," she said, pained, from the floor. _Clarke...she doesn't know..._ "You shot at us."

"You got too close to the truth, too quickly. We had to do something."

" _We_? You and Jaha? You think Jaha's the kind of person who's gonna reward you because of your faith in him? He had his own son _killed_!"

"You don't understand. I had no choice," he whispered, as Lexa spat blood onto the floor of the van. "I had to kill Wells. I was in a corner I couldn't fight my way out of."

"Bull _shit_. There's always a choice. You made the wrong one. Here's the thing, Bellamy—you can't keep saying you were forced to do this and do that when you're the one actively doing it. You chose this path—so you walk it. Alone."

She registered the surprise on Bellamy's face and struggled to her feet. He watched her cautiously, as if every move she made was to antagonise him. Her jaw throbbed from how hard he'd decked her, but it was nothing serious. A swollen jaw was a fair trade if she made it out of this alive. She briefly glimpsed over towards Octavia and Raven.

How could Jaha kill his son, and how could Bellamy hurt his twin sister like that? They were questions Lexa didn't want to hear the answer to. All she had to do was to keep Bellamy away from Clarke, and as predicted, he asked of her whereabouts. She shrugged. "I don't know."

"Don't make me force it out of you, Lexa."

Lexa knew the distribution route A of RED was about to make its way into the hands of the Chinese Triads, and if Bellamy seized the vehicle, he could probably still negotiate his way out of it. But that was exactly where Clarke was headed—and Lexa didn't want to give him any inkling that she knew of those routes. Instead, she put both her fists up, bending her knees ever so slightly as she quirked her eyebrows up at him. Bellamy took one look at her and laughed, shaking his head.

"I won't beat the shit out of you, Lexa."

"I wasn't asking."

"Tell me where Clarke is. Tell me where she is, and we all get to go home."

"Dead? Or alive?"

"That's for my boss to decide."

"Your boss is a little...tied up at the moment," Lexa said lightly, watching the options tick by in Bellamy's mind. "If you want Jaha, you'll have to go through me. If you want Clarke, you'll still have to go through me."

She sized Bellamy up. In hand-to-hand combat, she knew she did not have much of a chance. She could injure him, but with his size and his relative quickness, the advantages of her height and lightness were cancelled out by his boxing training. Damn this Lincoln boy. The only thing that worked in his favour was Bellamy's height—he consistently had to duck his neck a little to accommodate for the height of the van.

But if it bought Clarke some time...

Lexa landed the first punch.

 

* * *

 

Clarke stood by the side of the road, running through the details in the mind. The distribution truck would pull up twenty minutes before the buyers—the leader of the Chinese Triads—in order to rifle and sort through their stock. This stretch of road was not in the shadows. CCTV littered the place, but if there had been a rat within the precinct, they had surely known what time and date to look for, and paid for the data to be erased.

Cameras and computers sometimes did not have much use when you had people. When you had _humans_ , willing to break their moral compass for a thousand dollars.

She pulled on a gas mask and fetched her duffel bag off the floor, hearing the heavy engine of a truck far away. As it neared, she stood in the middle of the round and bent down to rummage around in her bag, pulling out the rocket launcher Lexa had seized from the precinct.

Octavia's one had mysteriously vanished. But this one was firm in Clarke's arms.

It was not the most delicate idea Lexa had ever come up with, but Clarke would be lying if she hadn't grinned at the audacity of it—and the feel of a sleek rocket launcher in her grasp.

As the truck drove within range, she could hear it screech as it tried to brake to accommodate for her in the road—but she didn't care. Instead, she fired.

The two explosions blew the men out of the front seat, completely unconscious. The one who'd moaned out in agony was delivered a swift kick to the head to shut him up as he attempted to get to his feet. Making quick work of it, she kicked her way to the back and stared in amazement at the sacks and sacks of white powder Cage Wallace had been trying to shift in cooperation with Theolonious Jaha, effectively controlling the distribution of drugs within Washington DC.

This was millions and _millions_ of dollars, and Clarke took no greater pleasure in starting the engine, reversing wildly down the path the truck had come down.

She tied the drivers up and heaved them back into the truck, ziptied. Four vials—two and two—of diazepam solution went into each neck. It wasn't enough to die, but diazepam had the longest half-life of the benzos they could access; they'd be out for a while.

Her heart-rate shot through the roof as she tried to calm herself down. _I should've saved a fucking vial for myself..._

Clarke drove as far as she could until she passed an abandoned wasteland by the side of the highway. It looked a little like a desert—that's how devoid of life it was. With barely a scratch on her, drove deep into the wasteland area and clambered out of the truck, opening both doors to the back and whistling lowly in appreciation.

With great effort, she dragged the two unconscious men from the truck and dumped them on the floor. Clarke worked out, but she was _not_ Lexa. Rolling them away from danger took her at least ten minutes, and she was sweating heavily by the end of it.

In the heat of the sun, she poured two gallons of oil over the vehicle and stood back.

"You'll never guess how much is in here," she murmured over the comms, somewhat perturbed that nobody answered her back. She did not think too much into it—she'd smack Raven and Octavia for ignoring her later—and with glee, she took a box of matches from her jacket pocket and lit one.

"For you, Wells Jaha," she said quietly, holding the match. "You were brave, sweet, kind, honest, and you were _never_ be afraid to be yourself. I couldn't give you everything you wanted or needed, but you deserved that. I'm gonna give you justice today, Wells. And—" she sniffed loudly, her eyes filling with tears leftover from the funeral. It had been so _hard_ to grieve him when she'd just been surrounded by unsympathetic or unknowing faces. Her friends had been supportive, but Wells...Wells had been _Wells_. "You—you tell me if you need anything else. Don't be a stranger."

She flicked the match, watching it catch fire on the oil trail and started to back away, her eyes transfixed on the truck. She was jogging slightly, as the fiery trail made its way to the contents of the truck, the insides of the truck, the tyres—and then it exploded.

Clarke nearly collapsed in shock, tripping over her own feet and landing on the floor. Stunned, she watched a couple more smaller explosions happen as the truck was engulfed in flames—flames of _justice_ , she liked to think—and closed her eyes in relief. She had not stopped Cage Wallace's empire of RED, but she'd blown a sizeable hole in the main keep of his castle.

With the vehicle driven _away_ instead of left for the Triads to find, this would not look like an accident. It would look as if Cage had freaked out, and betrayed the Chinese. Clarke did not know much about Chinese culture, but she knew of the Triads—and they didn't like traitors. She knew the men had been doing their jobs—but if they couldn't remember a thing and just so happened to be alive whilst the entire drug distribution was gone, then it wasn't a story either Jaha nor the Triads would let them wriggle out of.

Clarke didn't feel guilty.

The Empire wasn't burning before her, but she'd taken a castle. One at a time. That was how Kings conquered, wasn't it?

Her phone rang in her pocket, and she didn't have the energy to take the call. She left it ringing and ringing, despite it ringing about five times. Someone really needed to get through to her—but she couldn't deal with anymore today. She sat down on the sandy ground, her eyes nearly drifting off to sleep as she watched the blaze roar and spit in front of her, and eventually dwindle down into nothing.

Somewhere, up there, she imagined Wells was smiling down at her.


	7. How Timely

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wah apologies for the wait! This serves really as a loose last chapter. In a way, I would say I hope it isn't rushed--but I do actually hope it is. I kinda just wanna make this all very new to both of them. I mean, that way it, er, is open to a sequel (alas I will not do one...somebody else do it! Lol) but c'mon writers I'll prompt all of you for all the cop buddies AUs XD

Lexa found that being in hospital _again_ in a 'critical condition' was a) just really damn unlucky and b) frustrating to say the least. Being cooped up with some grey-looking prison quality food wasn't pleasant.

The nurses and doctors were courteous and kind to say the least—but Lexa _hated_ the smell of hospitals. She hated the pinch of the cannula being inserted into her vein. She hated having to press the 'help' button so a nurse could escort her to the toilet and make sure she didn't fall.

Most of all, she hated being a near-vegetable. She'd instantly banned everyone except Indra and Anya on visits—which meant occasionally, she saw insistent and loud shadows behind her closed blinds, but the doctors and nurses refused entry.

Indra had found her after she'd pressed the distress button in her jacket pocket. It had been a three-way agreement between her, Anya and Indra—and something they had not told Clarke about. Lexa being drafted in as an undercover cop in a precinct she barely knew meant she needed one—she just hadn't thought she'd use it on Bellamy.

Bellamy had beaten the _shit_ out of her.

Lexa had been swaying on the brink of unconsciousness before a ziptied Raven and Octavia quietly came to, behind Bellamy in the limited space of the van. They'd clattered into the computer equipment, bashing each other's heads against the wall of the van. It had been a dirty, brutal fist-fight—and Bellamy, who was much better trained and much more of a hulk of muscle than she was, was bettering her. It wasn't exactly unpredictable. Lexa was skilled enough to evade a number of his punches, but as soon as one of his _did_ catch, she couldn't recover enough from his sheer force to prevent him from repeatedly smacking down on her.

Before Indra's forces had gotten to the van, Raven and Octavia had made some sort of pact behind the battling duo, and then jumped Bellamy from behind. Raven had received an elbow to the face but it had bought Lexa some time to recover and deliver a half-hearted punch across Bellamy's jaw, before Indra burst through the van's doors as Lexa slumped to the floor, spent.

The ambulance had already been outside.

"Bellamy Blake has been arrested with conspiring with a criminal in order to expand a drug business," Indra had said shortly during debrief. A barely conscious Lexa registered this, but she could feel victory swell in her chest—and _fuck_ Elizabeth Beaumont, seriously. She was sick of being undercover. "Mayor Theolonious Jaha has been charged with running a drug business hand-in-hand with business associates Cage Wallace and Lorelei Tsing. Dante Wallace remains silent on the case."

"You sound like a news reporter," Lexa had rasped.

"I'm reading off the page, Woods. Octavia Blake has been granted a week's leave because of the situation, though she intends to return to the precinct. Clarke Griffin works small cases she can handle alone until the Chief Inspector can find a replacement for her partner. I assume you still want to retire from the police force after Ford's situation?"

"I—" Lexa hesitated, her voice stuck in her throat. Indra, who had expected a full-on, hasty " _yes_ ", glanced up in confusion. "I don't know."

"What do you mean, you don't know? After Ford overdosed, you were devastated. I speak on behalf of the Chief when I say we cannot have that kind of behaviour and emotional breakdown at work."

"I _know_." Lexa had heard all of this before. "I know."

"Then...what do you mean?"

"The doctors gave me a week. They want to do some CT scans as well to see if I got an injuries to the head, though an MRI scan will have a longer wait. Give me a week, Indra. If I come back to the precinct, I will come. If I don't, consider it my resignation."

"Does this really require a _week_?"

"Well, it requires some thought. I can't imagine you tending to me every day."

Indra had given her a withering glare. "I'd rather watch paint dry."

"Then give me the week. Anya can still rifle through the applications."

"Fine. Just..." Indra stood up, and said curtly, "Be careful, Lexa. Take care."

It was about as close to affectionate respect as Indra would give, and Lexa nodded in understanding back at her, quirking a lopsided smile. Indra nodded back and exited swiftly, and Lexa laughed softly to herself. Indra would likely kill a pet rabbit than show any emotion beyond _that_ , so she made sure she would not take it for granted. Lexa sighed and sank into her pillows, exhausted—mentally and physically. She was glad to be shedding Elizabeth Beaumont's poncey skin, but in a weird way she was going to miss that luxurious apartment in Manor Gardens. She'd miss those late-night talks on the balcony with Clarke, of how she'd talk of her mother nagging her all the time over a glass of alternating Pinot or Shiraz. Lexa's lips curved into a smile as she remembered Clarke yelling she was a _winetard_ in the middle of the supermarket as they argued over what wine to bring to Tsing and Wallace's dinner.

"I'll leave you to it," Indra announced, and Lexa had genuinely forgotten she was still in the room. Indra stood up and nodded at her. "You're progressing well, Woods. You'll be out soon."

"Right. I'm beginning to miss pizza." Lexa watched as Indra brushed her trousers down and made to leave. "Sarge?"

"Yes?"

"Thank you."

Indra held her gaze, blinking slowly. "You're walking on thin ice, Woods," she gritted out, and regretfully set the newspaper aside. Lexa didn't need to guess what was coming. "We don't have the full audio but Jaha was found badly, if superficially and _cleverly_ , injured—purposefully so."

"I had to extract the information somehow. If I hadn't done it, Clarke wouldn't have known the distribution route to blow up."

"You _tortured_ the _Mayor of Arkadia_!" Indra struggled to keep her voice down.

Lexa rolled her eyes. It had been plaguing her mind ever since. Anya would _never_ take her back, and Indra—well, there was even _less_ of a chance with Indra. But Anya nor Indra could argue that she hadn't done it for the greater good. Yeah, it was seriously fucked up. Only someone messed in the head could do what they had done, so precisely and so callously, to a living, screeching man. "I did my job," Lexa hissed. "Sorry if I didn't read the blueprint."

"Like the _law_?"

"Clarke had no time, and I had no time for justice," Lexa said flatly. "Do what you gotta do then, Sarge."

"You're one of the most promising Detectives I've ever seen, Woods. You can't throw it all away like that. It was too easy."

"Do what's right, Sarge. Then the Chief can lecture me on morality."

 

* * *

 

> **JAHA NO MORE? MAYOR OF WASHINGTON D.C. ARRESTED ON DRUGS CHARGE**
> 
> **By Nathan Miller**
> 
> Today the world of Washington DC was rocked to its core when its Mayor, Theolonious Jaha, was arrested on an illegal drugs charge. Accused of aiding businessman Cage Wallace and his accomplice and fiancé Dr. Lorelei Tsing, Mr. Jaha was found to be supplying distribution routes and safe passage for Mr. Wallace in order to transport the new street drug, 'RED', in secret. In a move that stunned the jury and the public, Mr. Jaha pled guilty and even said in-court he was not apologetic about his drug business endeavours.
> 
> This comes as a shock after Mr. Jaha's personal tragedy over a month ago. His son, Detective Wells Jaha, was killed investigating the same case. Was this just a coincidence or did Mr. Jaha orchestrate that too? Detective Raven Reyes, one of the first to emerge from the precinct building, confirmed to us that they had been investigating Jaha Junior's death too and were treating as a murder.
> 
> Mr. Jaha declined to comment, but DCI Anya Smithson stated: "We have been working very closely with some excellent Detectives on the case for a very long time. The evidence had been building towards Cage Wallace, Lorelei Tsing and Theolonious Jaha for some time. My only regret is that an innocent Detective in Wells Jaha—brave and heroic to the very end—was caught in the crossfire. I am hopeful that the streets of DC can sleep easier tonight knowing that we ended what could have been a major crisis within the streets, and I'd like to thank our brave undercover Detectives for their excellent field-work.
> 
> "We're aware that in this case of corruption, RED failed to take over the drug-lined streets of DC. We're aware we'll have to make more and more raids and seize more and more drugs. But we can't have treachery at the top, where morality must be at its purest. So we've eradicated that. Our next mission of reducing drug-use, supply and fatality rates will only show results within years of work. But that's something we're all committed to as a police force. I give my special thanks to the narcotics department, and again, our cops in plain sight."
> 
> Also arrested was former employee of Smithson's, Bellamy Blake. Stripped of his Detective status, Blake stands accused of conspiring with Mr. Jaha by leaking sensitive police information. It is suspected by many that Blake may be indirectly responsible for Wells Jaha's identity being leaked. However, upon being asked upon this, Smithson denied to comment.
> 
> Blake, who intends to plead 'not guilty', we've learned, said: "This isn't my doing. It's the ex-Mayor you should be looking into."
> 
> We still don't know the identities of the undercover Detectives who blew open the door to 'RED' but here's one thing we would like to say at DC Metro: we salute you!

 

* * *

 

Weeks later, it felt as if nothing had changed. Detective Lexa Woods had been suspended for her behaviour regarding Jaha, much to Clarke's protests. Anya's debrief had been brief and careless: the case was over, and something else was bothering her.

Weeks later also meant it was time for Jaha's trial, and Bellamy's trial. Jaha was a fuckwit, so nobody gave much of a shit when they saw him jolted around on television—but whenever Bellamy appeared, struggling against his handcuffs, everyone fell into an awkward silence.

"Are you okay?" Clarke asked for the fifth time as the news flashed on the television again, with Bellamy in cuffs, protesting his innocence. Octavia had returned to the precinct and received everything she hated: pity, sympathy, "I'm sorry" and "are you okay?"  

Octavia glared at her from over the top of her computer and then returned to her work. The short answer was _no_. Her brother—and the Blakes weren't just _brother and sister_ —they shared everything with each other. Learning that Bellamy had been Jaha's rat all along; learning that Bellamy had gotten Wells _killed_...Clarke wondered why she wasn't angrier about it. Of all of them, perhaps Bellamy had been the most susceptible. She thought of Jaha trying to bend Raven or Octavia's minds, and she knew he would not succeed.

Bellamy was _not_ a bad man. It was something she, and the rest of the precinct, had to remember. But he was susceptible to clever coercion—and she could only imagine the promises and lies Jaha had fed him. Bellamy was not a leader, despite his success on missions. He was first and foremost a soldier. It was why he'd never make Sergeant, or Chief. Bellamy followed orders. Anya was hard on him because he was a _good_ soldier—one of their best—and Jaha had seized his frustration and turned him into his pet.

"You know, maybe I should be the one asking you that," Octavia said finally, after an entire morning of silence. "We don't even know if Lexa's coming back. And Wells..."

"Wells is gone," Clarke said flatly. "And Lexa...she was only in it for this mission. She had some sort of deal with Anya and Indra, I think." She thought back to Costia Ford, and how heartbreaking that story had been. Clarke didn't see a reason why Lexa would remain. "I haven't heard from her. Indra told me she got discharged yesterday."

"Well, she didn't bust through those doors this morning, so..."

"I know." Clarke continued to type up her case report, utterly unfocused. "How do you do it?"

"Do what?"

"Pretend like this Bell thing isn't ripping your heart out."

"It's not really faking it." Octavia leant to the side so Clarke could see her face. Octavia always looked drop dead gorgeous, but she looked as if she hadn't slept for weeks. "I _did_ let it rip my heart out. And now, here I am."

" _Shit_ —Octavia—"

"It's fine. You think I'd be able to do anything if I was a blubbering mess?"

"Anya would understand if you need more leave."

"I don't want it." Octavia sounded as if she'd decided this a long time ago. "It'll only make me wallow in self-pity and there's no getting out that hole. Sometimes, Clarke, you just gotta keep going, no matter what happens."

"I guess so."

"You _know_ so," Octavia said. Clarke blinked at her in confusion, and Octavia slung her arm over her shoulder. "You know why I came back to this fucking precinct? I came back because it's my home. I lost my brother to a shitty man who's now been put away in a shitty place thanks to your undercover ex-partner slash hot piece of shit. But I could only push open the door because I remembered your face when you first came back to work, and promised to avenge Wells. Here you are. I didn't join the police because of Bell. I joined because I wanna make some things right in the world while I'm here. And I want to work with people who are brave enough to keep me going."

Clarke nodded silently as they both collected their coffees from the vending machine. Octavia squeezed her shoulder and then released her from her grip. Her words, blunt, had been oddly comforting. Clarke wasn't sure she'd ever forget Wells. Not with that smile. But she hoped he was high as fuck with the amount of RED she'd burnt up for him, the fumes going all the way to heaven. She smiled to herself at the thought.

Clarke took a sip of her mocha. Somehow, it tasted even shittier than normal. They sighed and returned to their desks, joined by Raven, who was limping after them. Her face was sweaty with exertion, but otherwise, she looked good—if a little pale. She took Clarke's mocha—to no complaint.

"So," Raven said, after downing Clarke's cup and tossing the cup into the bin. "I'm doing the surgery."

"You _are_?" both Octavia and Clarke squealed, leaping to their feet. Raven grumbled something like " _I knew you would both respond like this_ " but it was muffled by a three-way hug, with Clarke burying her head into Raven's collarbone. They had pestered Raven about this for _so long_ , and Raven had been a stubborn pig-head the entire way, but in Clarke's heart, she knew Raven was clever enough to figure out what was medically best for her. She had Abby Griffin she could trust, too. Raven laughed eventually, extending her arms so she could embrace both of them, yanking them close.

"I'm so proud of you," Octavia told her honestly, voice stifled by the strength of Raven's hug. "You're going to be amazing. This is amazing. Dr. Griffin will look after you."

"Sure hope so," Raven joked, and made a show of winking at Clarke.

Clarke rolled her eyes. Who even winked anymore?

"So what's gonna happen?" Octavia asked excitedly. "Is it gonna get rid of the pain?"

"No. It's something to do with the spine. I don't know. Hopefully." Raven ran her hand through her hair. She looked, for a moment, as if she was going to be sick. Clarke gauged her immediately.

"You've...Literally just told my mom, haven't you?"

Raven balked. "Kinda."

"Oh, _God_. You need some time to process," Clarke said. "Jeez..."

Octavia hugged Raven again, muttering something comforting in her ear. Raven hugged back and it all lasted a little longer than the norm. Clarke only watched. Raven was losing her leg and Octavia had lost her brother. It was awful when you looked at it that way. She stood awkwardly to the side, until Raven's stray arm dragged her by the neck and pulled her in for another giant hug.

"Raven," Clarke strained, "you're strangling me."

Raven ignored her, her eyes fixed straight ahead. "I'm suffocating you out of love."

"How the fuck—"

"My apologies for the intrusion," said a voice behind them—too familiar, and too _impossible_ , "don't break the love fest apart on my behalf."

The trio separated to find Lexa Woods, fully decked out in their precinct uniform, stood in front of them. Raven's jaw was the first to drop, followed by Clarke and Octavia.

Behind them, Indra lingered to explain the situation and then decided to give up, walking off in exasperation. Lexa smiled lopsidedly, scratching the back of her head as Octavia and Raven welcomed her back, hugging her gently to mind of the injuries. They were polite hugs. Lexa turned to Clarke, who still stared at her as if she was the stranger from Wells' buffet.

"What're you doing back?" she asked, stunned.

"I was hoping for a warmer welcome," Lexa said lightly. Octavia and Raven exchanged glances and muttered their excuses, walking away, wishing Lexa all the best. "Seeing as Blake's going down with Jaha and the lot, Anya figured there was a vacancy here for me."

"I thought you didn't want to go back into police work," Clarke said. "I mean, after what happened with—"

"That was the past," Lexa interrupted. "I want to live in the now."

As people passed, they tapped Lexa on the shoulder to congratulate her for her good work. Lexa forced a smile back at the officers she barely even knew, and then turned back to Clarke, who was still looking at her as if she'd sprouted another head.

"Something else," Lexa said. "I believe, since Wells' demise, you need a new partner."

" _Lexa_ —"

"I said, quite frankly, I didn't want it to be anyone other than you. Is that alright?"

Clarke's heart, for some reason, fluttered. She blushed. "Of course."

"That's good."

Silence landed awkwardly between them, and Lexa shifted where she was standing. She was holding a box of her stuff for her desk—and Clarke could see a cactus plant sticking out in the corner. "I, um, won't keep you from—you know—unpacking, and stuff."

"Not quite Manor Gardens," Lexa joked.

"No, not quite."

Sensing the drop in atmosphere, Lexa nodded at her and then moved swiftly to Wells' old desk, careful to unpack respectfully and quietly. She had very few items—Clarke remembered her minimalism back at the apartment. It wasn't until Lexa was filling her stationary holder that Clarke approached her desk, heart hammering every step of the way.

"Do—do you wanna catch up?" she asked, so quickly it was a miracle Lexa caught it at all. Lexa stilled, holding one of those Funko pop characters in her hand. "I mean, we—we sort of—I'll come to yours. I'll bring food."

Lexa paused as she pulled out a folder, and Clarke—well, she bolted.

"But you don't even know my—"

 

* * *

 

_Address._

That was what Lexa had been trying to tell her, and this was the reason why Clarke had suddenly rushed back to the precinct, with Anya's exasperated permission. Feeling like a true creep, she rifled for Lexa's details and jotted the address down on a sticky note, tempted to read the rest of the file—before deciding this was creepy enough.

With a sigh, she made a mental note to return the keys to Anya first, and then she plugged Lexa's address into the sat-nav. The pizza was beginning to stink out her car.

As soon as she got to the door, she realised she'd have to come up with some sort of meek explanation for the pizza and beer. Worse, every step she took seemed to magnify the absolute idiocy of the situation—right up until Clarke rung the doorbell, and her heart felt like it was crumpling into itself in embarrassment.

Lexa, her hair tied up with passata smeared across her apron, flung the door open. She stared. " _What_?"

"Don't be creeped out—I brought beer," Clarke said lamely, holding the case up for proof. This did not encourage Lexa to step aside. "I wanted to celebrate with you, except I realised in the precinct I'd never asked for your—"

"—Address," Lexa said faintly. "Oh, you went full-on creep, didn't you?"

"I looked it up."

"You looked it up."

"Come in, stalker."

"Shut the fuck up."

"Pinot or Shiraz?"

" _Oh, shut up._ "

They made their way to the kitchen, chatting good-naturedly. Lexa had made enough lasagne to feed a small village, but she explained it was mainly going to her secondary house anyway. Clarke's offer of pizza seemed endlessly more appealing to her than homemade food, so they tore it open, cracking open the beers. Clarke's ears reddened as Lexa continued to tease her for looking her up in the precinct system, though she seemed to be caught out when Clarke told her that Anya had given her access. " _Traitor_!" Lexa had exclaimed.

Clarke hogged the armchair, sprawling her limbs out everywhere and anywhere, whilst Lexa occupied the neighbouring sofa. Not long ago, Tris from the house had collected the food and driven off in her beaten-up Polo, and Lexa's shoulders seemed to relax for the first time that night. They talked of nothing, of Bellamy Blake, of Theolonious Jaha—they were irrelevant now—but conversations that consisted of _nothing_ proved to be therapy in a way.

They did not mention the names Elizabeth Beaumont or Jackson Smith.

"How come?" Clarke asked suddenly, four beers down. Her head swam slightly. "Rumours were flying around, saying you'd only come for the mission—then you'd be gone. Rumours about your past. Why..." Clarke tried to gauge Lexa, finding it impossible. "How come you came back?"

Lexa narrowed her eyes in thought. "I don't hate police work."

"Okay."

"Everyone thought I did. I'm not bitter at the system. Undercover is undercover. Costia got herself tangled up too deep. A lot of people do. The system didn't fuck her up. I don't have much to care about, Clarke, but if someone's dangling off a bridge or there's a bomb about to blow up a hundred people, I'm there. I told you: I'm a military man and a lawyer's daughter. I don't think I know anything else except how to try and make some change. It's not a reflection on my good self. It's just how I was brought up. The values my parents would bring home..."

"And Costia?" Clarke asked tentatively. "What..."

"I loved her. I did. I _do_. But I'm not haunted by her."

"I'd imagine the dead would want you happy."

Lexa studied her, taking a sip of her beer in thought. "Your father—you never talked of him much."

"He passed," Clarke said shortly, and Lexa nodded, as if she'd expected that answer. Sometimes, Clarke despised that of Lexa. She probed when she already knew, or she'd probe because she _knew_ it was a button that could be pushed. "That's why I said it."

"Okay. And Wells?"

"I miss him."

"I miss Costia."

"You loved Costia. I didn't love Wells—I never did."

"There's a love that's so tight it's suffocating, and that pain is delicious because you know if you hurt, it's real," Lexa said suddenly, eyes far away. "It wraps around you like a snake and you succumb. And when it's smacked away from you, the snake crushes you until your bones crack and your insides bleed out." Clarke stared at her, shuddering at the description. Lexa was never going to get over Costia—and Clarke both understood and hated it. "But I'm still here. My heart beats. Sometimes it quickens. My pulse races. My brains are kind of there. I'm strong and I feel—even though I know that snake got me good."

"Lexa..."

"Jackson Smith and Elizabeth Beaumont fell in love in the most contrived, clichéd way possible." Lexa was speaking quickly now, her cheeks pinkening. "If I fall for you, where do I start?"

"Lexa—"

"If I fall for you, my love will not be saccharine; if I fall for you, it could hurt."

"Then let me cushion you," Clarke said softly, moving forwards so she perched on the edge of her armchair. She reached over and placed a cautious hand over Lexa's kneecap, rubbing gently. When Lexa didn't move, she rested it there. "If you fall for me and you have nobody to catch you, then why jump blindly? If I want to be there for you, will you let me?"

"I want to promise you I won't hurt you."

"You can't. I won't promise that."

"I'll jump."

"I'll be there." Clarke sighed, letting everything digest slowly. Lexa had rushed out some overly dramatic proclamation of ardency but it was ridiculous how deeply she felt the same way. "I won't catch you. I'll buy like seven mattresses and stack 'em."

Lexa laughed, shaking her head. Clarke found her hand on Lexa's knee hastily covered by one of Lexa's, clammy to touch. She'd been working herself up about this. And Clarke wasn't sure what Lexa had had with Costia—or if Lexa would truly forget her. She didn't care. If Costia had been a part of Lexa's life, why should she forget? She knew they'd be very different. She knew she had fire to match Lexa's. They were a spark against flint, catching fire as everyone huddled for warmth. They just had to make sure they didn't leave it so they let the whole forest catch on fire too.

Their fingers entangled within each other's, their hands gently exploring each other's. They were both slightly rough, calloused and used. Copper's fingers, worn down by years of work and death and betrayal and pretence.

"We made a decent undercover couple." Clarke grinned rakishly at Lexa's shake of the head.

"We were _shit_. And I only ever kissed you for the mission."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yep."

"Where's your bedroom?"

 

* * *

 

 "I hadn't done _that_ before."

"Mm..."

In the dim light of Lexa's bedroom, Lexa pulled a messy-haired and flustered Clarke down for a kiss, letting it linger. The moment Clarke had asked, they'd torn into each other, their lust and overwhelming want— _need_ —for each other ripping away at them. They stumbled across Lexa's apartment, Clarke laughing like a drunken college kid as they barged through the door, landing on Lexa's bed by pure chance.

Clothes were strewn _everywhere_ and as Lexa revelled in post-sex afterglow, the bedside lamp providing a bit of light, she found she couldn't take her eyes away from Clarke.

"You've stolen my eyes from me," Lexa murmured, smiling lopsidedly.

Clarke laughed. "You say some stupid things."

"I mean it. You are a thief. You steal my eyes. My mouth. My body. Brain. Heart."

"How badly do you want it back?"

"I don't know. Badly. But I like how you wear me."

"That doesn't even make sense."

"It makes sense to me."

"You say some stupid things, Lexa Woods," Clarke said again, fondly. She reached over to stroke Lexa's cheek, brushing a lock of brown hair out of the way and tucking it behind her ear. Lexa took her hand and kissed the back of it, not once taking her eyes off Clarke. "You _are_ a stupid thing."

Slowly, Clarke clambered over Lexa's body, catching the way Lexa slowly grinned up at her. She shucked the covers off, revealing her naked body and revelling in the way Lexa still looked at her as if she was a goddess. She'd never been worshipped like Lexa had worshipped her with her lips earlier. Almost on autopilot, Clarke swung one leg over so she straddled Lexa, whose hands greedily roamed her thighs, up to her waist and massaged her breasts, her breathing growing shallow.

"You're so beautiful."

"You're just saying that because I made you come about fifty times."

"I'm saying it because you are beautiful."

"Hmm."

"It's true," Lexa murmured, bending up to capture Clarke's lips in a kiss. It was tender, and her lips dropped to her neck, nuzzling her face against her collarbone. "Some people think the night skies are beautiful. So you're the night sky. Or some people think the Louvre is. So you are the Louvre. I think you are Detective Clarke Griffin..." Lexa kissed her collarbone, her fingers idly flicking at Clarke's nipples until they hardened, and she could feel her arousal ache between her legs. Groaning, she ground down against Lexa's thigh, knowing Lexa could feel her wetness. It made Lexa smug, and Lexa was insufferable when smug. "And I think you are beautiful."

Clarke smirked down at her. "Don't you get tired of charming all the girls?"

"I charm no-one." Lexa kissed her again, her fingernails scraping up Clarke's back as Clarke pushed her hips down on her, riding her shamelessly. "Am I—" she kissed her earlobe, whispering into it, "charming _you_?"

Clarke shivered, moaning as Lexa's fingers pinched the inside of her thigh, her palm cupping her cunt. She closed her eyes, nodding frantically.

"What was that?"

"I said—oh, _God_ —" Clarke groaned as Lexa's skilled fingers toyed around with her clit, a satisfied smile spreading across her face. She was so wet now that Lexa slipped an easy finger in, curling in a beckoning type gesture as Clarke threw her head back, exposing her neck. "Me," she panted, and Lexa nodded against her neck, pressing a second finger in as she picked up a slow rhythm, thrusting hard into her. Clarke whimpered as Lexa's teeth clamped down on her collarbone. "You're— _ungh_ —charming— _me_ —"

"Mm. Good." Lexa was the fucking _devil_. Her fingers picked up speed, her thumb gently pressing against Clarke's clit as Clarke's hips shifted against her lap, grinding down on her. Her mouth was open, an "O", in pleasure. "Will you?"

"Uh?"

Lexa thrust hard, and Clarke bucked her hips, moaning loudly. "Come for me?"

"Fuck," Clarke near-shouted, burying her face in Lexa's shoulder as she rode Lexa's fingers, allowing Lexa to bring her to the heights of her orgasm and then cradle her back down again, her moans muffled by Lexa's sweaty skin. "Fu— _fuck_."

"You're beautiful," Lexa whispered into her ear, feeling Clarke tense as her fingers remained inside her, slightly curled.

"You are."

"You're sundown and sunset. You're all haze and musk and colours and new beginnings."

"You're speaking in riddles again." Clarke drawled lazily, utterly spent. She hooked her legs around Lexa's waist, her hands clasped behind Lexa's neck. She pressed a light kiss to the tip of Lexa's nose. "You know you speak like fucking Shakespeare sometimes?"

"I'll put a Cap-ulet on it."

"Oh _God_ , is this what I have to put up with--?"

"I want to show you every day how beautiful you are," Lexa vowed. "I'm going to make you crave worship."

"Yeah?"

"Mm-hmm. I'm going to have a map of your body on my lips."

"Mm."

"My hands are forever bound to the touch of your body."

"Lexa. Come to bed."

Clarke rolled off her, laughing as Lexa smacked her ass. They quickly settled into each other, pleased they slotted together perfectly; Lexa was taller and naturally slung her arm over Clarke's shoulder. Clarke, whose smile refused to be wiped from her face, snuggled into the crook of Lexa's shoulder, pressing a fond kiss there.

"I'm glad you came back," Clarke said quietly. She could still hear the rumours in her head, and how she'd believed them, and how her shoulders had deflated in disappointment—mainly in sorrow—when she realised she wouldn't see Lexa again.

Lexa kissed the top of Clarke's head. "Can you cope with me as your narcs partner?"

"What do you think?" Clarke didn't respond, and Lexa laughed. "DC won't know what's hit them."

"Hey." Clarke was quieter than usual, more timid than usual. Lexa ducked her head down, frowning, and Clarke only smiled at her, kissing her lightly on the lips. "Can I ask a favour of you?"

"Anything."

"Be with me?"

"I am with you."

"Not today. I mean—there's something I need to do. And I want you to be there."

"Okay."

"Just...yeah, if you could just—be with me..."

Lexa tilted Clarke's chin up and kissed her gently, closing her eyes. "Always."


	8. Epilogue

"The florist told me that the orchid meant 'I will always love you'. I'm no Whitney Houston but remember when we were rookies and you drove around and I'd belt out _Saving All My Love For You_ and _I Will Always Love You_ and you kept telling me how I sounded like a dying cat? And when I got everyone in the precinct to prank you for your birthday by simultaneously blasting _I Wanna Dance With Somebody_ off their computers when I brought out the cake, and you hated me for two weeks? So here you go. 'Cause I _will_ always love you. You were my best friend. You had a handsome smile. You loved me, and I wish I loved you back in the way you wanted. You deserved more. But you take this orchid and you remember me up in Heaven. Even when you're hooking up with God's best looking women, 'cause you're a looker, remember me. I'll always remember you. You're every single star in the sky for me. I love you. Goodbye, Wells."

Sniffing, Clarke bent and placed a soft kiss against his gravestone, dropping the orchids. Tears streaked down her face—the tears she refused to shed in front of his shit-head of a father, Theolonious Jaha, the ex-Mayor. Some nights she wanted to quit narcs all together, and some nights she wondered if she'd stay in that department for all eternity because of Wells Jaha and his legacy of doing the right thing.

He'd asked her not to avenge him, but what else could she have done? He'd asked her not to let anger consume her, not to seek death for him—and she hadn't. She'd brought him justice. It had to be enough.

It was sick that the justice they'd unravelled was treachery in the form of Theolonious Jaha—but that man had never been good to Wells. Manipulative, shrewd and harsh, Clarke remembered the days Wells would come to work, sleepy, puffy-eyed and down. No-one could cheer him up. Jaha had always been harsh on him; Clarke never asked beyond that. All she knew now was that he was behind bars. Considering he'd been the Mayor and had probably put away half of those criminals, she hoped he got the shit beaten out of him for it.

Clarke swiped furiously at her face, kneeling on the ground as she hung her head, sobbing. They'd taken him too early. They'd taken the wrong soul. Wells Jaha had been the purest, and God had just been selfish. Death had been mistaken.

She didn't even _want_ to think about the many ways she wanted to torture Bellamy Blake. All of them ended with castration.

She stood up slowly, and blew the gravestone another kiss. "Detective Wells Jaha, the precinct's really fucking proud of you. And we all love you. We do. We'll miss you every day. Take care up there, Wells. Avoid the bolts of lightning. You're much closer."     

Clarke grinned half-heartedly at her joke, knowing how much Wells hated her lame sense of humour and awful puns. She would never ride around in a police car with Wells Jaha again. She'd never advise him on extraction routes as he trampled through drug dens and apartment blocks with care. He'd been the gun on the ground; she'd been his ear.

Clarke eventually walked away, knowing she'd visit again. Closure felt good for her heart. It wasn't a bandaid; it was more like a pacemaker. And repeat visits would only be for the sake of keeping him updated. She was sure he'd want to know about her cutting her toenails at night. That was the kind of stuff that she used to say when she made sure he had a mouthful of coffee in his mouth in the morning, and everyone would laugh as he spat it everywhere.

Lexa sat patiently on the bench as Clarke neared, standing up to greet her. "You okay?"

"Yeah. I just...I never really got closure at his funeral. I just wanted one last time with him. Alone."

"You've been crying."

"I know. It's lame, I know. I haven't gotten over—"

"It's not lame." Lexa brushed the wetness from her cheeks, and Clarke scrunched her eyes up, trying not to well up again. "Everyone reacts differently when they've lost someone."

"What about you?" Clarke asked tentatively. "After Costia?"

Lexa licked her lips, and thought back. The memories of her, unconscious and foaming at the mouth in the precinct showers still haunted her at night. A few times, Clarke had woken up at 4am to find Lexa ram-rod straight in bed, shouting and sweating.

"I just carried on," Lexa said simply. "I tried to ignore it. Push it away. Act as if it never happened. I loved her. I loved her and she died. So I decided I wouldn't love again."

"Ever?"

"Ever," Lexa confirmed. Clarke stood awkwardly before her, and Lexa gave her a hesitant smile. "That was then. C'mon. We're not here to talk about Costia."

"We never really do," Clarke explained. "I feel like...I feel like I talk so much about Wells and it's just selfish of me to—"

"I listen every time," Lexa butted in, a little forcefully. "I _want_ to hear about Wells. I want to hear about all your adventures and how stupid he thought you were. 'Cause then I feel a real connection to him." She laughed when Clarke punched her arm, scowling.

"I used to talk about Wells constantly," Clarke confessed. Her heart ached. She always got what she never deserved: that was, she was never good enough for the people she adored. Wells Jaha was a lily: he was innocence and he was gorgeous. Lexa listened and forgave and kissed her like she was her world. "I guess I stopped when people stopped wanting to hear it. So I just kept thinking it instead."

"Somewhere, someone will listen. You might've spoken into five, six, seven ears—but there's always one who'll sit you down and hear everything you gotta say."

Lexa's eyes were kind. Clarke knew she was talking about herself; hell, Lexa knew Clarke knew. But Clarke thanked her anyway, genuinely. Lexa was not cotton-candy. She was iron and steel, forged from a strict and conservative past. She was calculating, intelligent and manipulative. Clarke jumped and then thought about the consequences after ending up in A&E. Lexa was the one who'd stand on the edge, estimate the distance, plan how to land, and wonder if it was a death wish or a possibility. Clarke was the doer; Lexa was the thinker. They were complete opposites, and Lexa's eyes were not always kind. But they had both lost someone they loved dearly. Sometimes loneliness brought two souls together and it was wrong, because loneliness should never drive love. But Clarke found she adored Lexa's company regardless.

Maybe that's why they clicked so well.

Lexa fiddled with her singular lily. "I'm not sure this is appropriate."

"Of course it is. Wells would be so happy I'm sleeping with you."

"You put it so romantically."

Hesitantly, Lexa inched towards Wells' grave. She'd never been good at this. She'd never been good at goodbyes—she'd never visited Costia's grave. She wondered, in the back of her mind, if it was time to. Nonetheless, she bent down to place her lily by Clarke's bunch of orchids.

"It means innocence. A restoring of that, once you're up there—" Lexa gestured up at the clouds above her, and swallowed. "I never knew you Wells. But I think like a lot of people in the precinct, I'm thankful for you.

"I'm sorry you died like that. I hope the angels up there are taking care of you. Know that I intend to look out for Clarke, as she does for me. I'm sure that's all you wanted for her. She said she thought maybe you loved her. If you did, then I completely understand why. What happened to you wasn't fair. But I promise you I'll never treat Clarke any less than she deserves, and that's with respect and with love. So rest in peace, big guy, and I'm glad we met."

Lexa backed away ungracefully, turning around to see if Clarke approved at all. She got a teary smile in response, so she quickly bade goodbye to Wells' grave and near-jogged over towards the bench, placing a tentative hand on Clarke's shoulder.

"You should've asked," Lexa murmured, "when we were undercover—you should've just told me how much you missed him. I hate the thought of you going through all of that and encountering your best friend's killer when I could've been there for you."

"But you _were_." Clarke grasped Lexa's hand, and squeezed hard. "You were there when Bellamy shot at us. You saved my life. You took all of his punches and kicks just to buy me time. You saved my life. You never sold me out."

"I would never—"

"I know. I know. But just because I didn't spill my guts out to you, it doesn't mean you weren't ever there for me, and that I never felt it."

"Well...I'm here for you now."

"You always _were_. And you know, I want to be there for _you_ whenever you want to talk about Costia."

"I don't want to talk about Costia. I haven't wanted to, for several—"

" _If_ you want to, then," Clarke corrected herself, taking Lexa's hand from her shoulder and letting it fall. Clarke took both of Lexa's hands in hers and played around with her fingers, interlocking them. "I'm your partner now, after all, aren't I?"

"I think we could be an alright duo. Griffin and Woods. We sound like a soliciting firm."

"Woods and Griffin? The other way round, maybe?"

"We sound like an animal shelter for birds."

"Griffin and Woods it is, then." Clarke laughed gently, and kissed both of Lexa's hands by the knuckles. "We can be that cute couple in the precinct that everyone hates 'cause we're getting regular sex _and_ we're solving crime." Clarke tiptoed and kissed her, chastely, lovingly. "That's _the_ life."

Lexa chuckled against Clarke's lips, and gently brushed their noses together. If only Wells could watch over them for all eternity, as they knocked their foreheads together, two idiots who'd accidentally fallen for the other. "No."

"No?"

"No, we won't be the 'cute couple'."

"What?"

Lexa fixed her with a hard gaze. "We'll be mercilessly kicking everyone's ass, God damn it."


End file.
